Danube bleak Danube bleak The Danube bleak or Caspian shemaya ("Alburnus chalcoides") is a species of freshwater fish in the family Cyprinidae. It is found in Iran, Austria, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Romania, Russia, Serbia, Slovenia, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan. The Danube bleak is an elongate slim fish which can reach but a more normal size is 15 to 30 centimetres (6 to 12 in). There are 57 to 70 scales along the lateral line. The abdomen is compressed into a keel and the posterior end of this has no scales. The dorsal fin has eight to nine
Common bleak young bleak, though the pointed upward turned mouth of the bleak is already distinctive at young stages. Young roach and ruffe have a wider body and a short anal fin. The bleak occurs in Europe and Western Asia: north of the Caucasus, Pyrenees and Alps, and eastward toward the Volga basin and North-Western Turkey. It is absent from the major southern peninsulas and most of British Isles except southeast England. It is however locally introduced in Spain, Portugal, and Italy. The bleak lives in great schools and feeds upon small molluscs, insects that fall in the water, insect larvae, worms,