Cyprinidae

Bonytail

Gila elegans

Fish Reaching Sixty Two Centimeters in Mexican Waters

• Temperate
• Northern Hemisphere
• Regional distribution
• Freshwater fish
• North America
• Fusiform
• Large
• Temperate fish

The bonytail chub or bonytail (Gila elegans) is a species of freshwater ray-finned fish belonging to the family Leuciscidae, which includes the daces, chubs, Eurasian minnows, and related species. This fish is native to the Colorado River Basin of Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah, and Wyoming in the Southwestern United States; it has been extirpated from the part of the basin in Mexico. It was once abundant and widespread in the basin, its numbers and range have declined to where it has been listed as endangered since 1980 (Endangered Species Act of 1973) and 1986 (IUCN), a fate shared by the other large Colorado basin endemic fish species such as the Colorado pikeminnow, humpback chub, and razorback sucker.