The vendace resembles, in its appearance, a small whitefish, but the vendace’s lower jaw is longer than its upper jaw and for the whitefish the converse is true. The vendace’s eyes are large, as is generally the case for all fish that eat plankton their whole life.
The area of distribution for the vendace is small, and Finland is situated in the centre of this area. In Finland, they are encountered in almost all of the large lakes that flow into the Baltic Sea. On the coastline, the vendace is found only in areas of low salinity.
The vendace thrives in barren, chilly, clean lakes. It spawns in the autumn, when the waters have cooled to 5-7 degrees. In certain lakes, vendace also spawn in December-January and in the late winter.
