A species of ray-feeding fish of the carp family. The type species is distributed in the rivers of Europe and the Urals, in the basins of the Baltic, Northern, Black, White, Barents, and Caspian Seas.

Body length - usually about 15 cm, maximum recorded - 40 cm, maximum recorded weight - 1.0 kg, can live up to 16 years. The spruce spruce has a bluish-gray back, a silver-white belly, and gray fins with a slight tinge of yellow. The initial rays of the fins are always darker than the rest. Body moderately squared, slightly compressed from sides. The mouth is small, semi-inferior. Pharyngeal teeth are double-rowed (usually 2.5-5.2). Gill rakers 8-10. Dorsal fin truncate, with 3 unbranched and 7-8 branched rays, respectively 3 and 7-9 in the anal fin. The caudal fin is relatively long, emarginate. The scales are medium-sized, with 46-54 scales in the lateral line. Externally, the spruce fish slightly resembles the chub, but the spruce fish differs in having a body more laterally compressed, a narrow head, a small mouth, and a slightly cut gray or yellowish anal fin, while the chub's is rounded and bright red.

The freshwater fish is found in small clear rivers with a slow stream, but also occurs in running lakes, sometimes enters some floodplain reservoirs. Keeps in large flocks in areas with hard sandy or rocky bottoms.

The fish becomes sexually mature at the age of 3 years at a length of 11-14 cm. Spawning takes place in spring, from the end of March to May; for spawning chooses bottom areas with sandy-clayey soil or in the presence of flooded vegetation; one female hatches up to 17 thousand eggs, the eggs are large, a diameter of about 2 mm.

It feeds on small plankton invertebrates, worms, grasshoppers, butterflies, flies, aquatic vegetation and bottom fouling (mud). It eats with great appetite various types of cereals: millet, herkules, various bran, bread, dough, corn, semolina, as well as bone meal (fried bones).

In Siberian rivers, the spruce is represented by a subspecies, the Siberian spruce (Leuciscus leuciscus baicalensis). Leuciscus leuciscus baicalensis is a fish of lo 30 cm in length. It differs from Leuciscus leuciscus in its terminal mouth. It usually inhabits rivers and rarely occurs in lakes. It forms lithophilic and phytophilic forms. Leuciscus leuciscus baicalensis is of commercial importance.