Lucioperca

(also Stizostedion), a genus of fish of the family Percidae. The body length is up to 120 cm and the weight up to 12 kg. There are five species: the common pike perch (Lucioperca lucioperca), the Volga pike perch (L. volgensis), and the European pike perch (L. marinus), occurring in European waters, and the sauger (L. canadense) and walleye pike (L. vitreum), occurring in eastern North America.

The common pike perch is the most important species commercially. It is distributed in the basins of the Baltic, Black, Caspian, and Aral seas and of the Sea of Azov and in the Maritsa River, which empties into the Aegean Sea. It has been acclimatized in the USSR in Lakes Issyk-Kul’, Balkhash, Chebarkul’, and Biilikol’ and in the Ust’-Kamenogorsk Reservoir. There are two biological forms: the freshwater, or resident, and the semi-migratory. The latter inhabits the brackish waters of the southern seas of the USSR, but ascends rivers to spawn.