Originally the golden trout was described as a subspecies of the rainbow trout, with a name Salmo mykiss agua-bonita,[REF] and it is still often considered a subspecies (now called Oncorhynchus mykiss aguabonita) along with several other rainbow trout subspecies commonly known as redband trout.
FishBase and the Catalog of Fishes however now (2014) list O. aguabonita as an independent species rather than as subspecies of O. mykiss [REF].