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The Mexican Golden Trout has the widest geographical range of any native Mexican
trout. The species is found in three large Pacific watersheds of Chihuahua
and Durango: the Rio Fuerte, Rio Sinaloa, and the Rio Culiacan. Most
of the O. chrysogaster specimens in museum collections are from
tributaries of the Rio Fuerte, this drainage being more easily accessed.
The status and distribution of the species is poorly known, and only a handful
of collections exist from the Sinaloa and Culiacan drainages. Inter-basin
populations of the Mexican Golden are quite variable, and when
some of the more remote arroyos and barrancas are
accessed by scientists, the Mexican Golden may eventually be
found to be comprised of different forms, or even different
species. Like other trout of mainland Mexico,
the Mexican Golden Trout prefers clear and cold headwater
streams, mostly above 6000 feet in altitude, and is most
abundant some distance from roads and bridges. Males
and females are strikingly dimorphic, the females being
principally silvery with dark parr marks, and the males
exhibiting the beautiful golden colors which give the
species it's common name.
The first museum specimens of Mexican Golden Trout were
captured in August of l952 by Stan Weitzman and Jack Lattin
from Arroyo de la Rana (a tributary of the Rio Verde --
tributary to Rio Fuerte) in southwestern Chihuahua.
Weitzman and Lattin were "trout hunting" for Paul Needham and Richard Gard, whose 1959
monograph "Rainbow Trout in Mexico and California" was the
first substantial publication of any sort on native trout of
Mexico. Needham and Gard formally named the species in
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