#australian fish

[champsblr]

Estuary Cobbler

[randomanimaloftheday]

Day 397#: Honey Blue-Eye

Today's animal of the day is the Honey Blue-Eye (Pseudomugil mellis)!

Photo credit: Neil Armstrong

Previously thought to be just a rare color variant of the Pacific blue-eye until 2004, this species of fish inhabits the ponds and streams flowing through the Wallum Sand Heaths of southeastern Queensland. They usually only grow to about an inch long (though some specimens have been recorded as being as big as an inch and a half), and as their name suggests, they are a honey yellow color with blue eyes. They also possess faint blue markings on their cheeks. Males have black bands with white margins on their dorsal, anal, and caudal fins; meanwhile, the fins of the females are clear.

Photo credit: Rudie H. Kuiter

These fish tend to live in water that is slightly acidic and often stained brown by tannins, which is a substance commonly found in the leaves, seeds, and bark of plants and can leak into the water if submerged for an extended period of time and turn it brown. Their diet consists mostly of algae, as well as some aquatic insects, and they spend much of their time foraging for food up near the water's surface in schools of anywhere from 25 to up to 70 individuals!

Photo credit: Moonlight Aquatics

Sadly, much of the Wallum Sand Heaths have been destroyed by human development, which has caused this species to become endangered. To make matters worse, their remaining habitat often lies on the outskirts of urban areas, which puts them at risk of becoming polluted. The honey blue-eyes also have to deal with several invasive predators, such as the eastern mosquitofish, the green swordtail, and the southern platyfish, all of which were brought to the region by humans and released into the wild. The eastern mosquitofish is apparently especially aggressive and has become invasive in many other parts of the world as well because people incorrectly believe they can help keep mosquito populations down and keep releasing them in places where they don't belong. They are also sometimes stolen from the wild to be sold as pets, though this doesn't seem to be as big of a threat as habitat loss and invasive species are. Still, we shouldn't be capturing endangered species to keep as pets.

[fluffacep]

Eel tailed catfish are one of my favourite fish so I drew one. They're found in the murray-darling basin in Australia, and can grow to 50 cm long.

This is in a slightly different style to my usual plain side view fish drawings and I think it came out a lot nicer.

I want one but don't have a big enough tank (well, I do have a tank above the minimum size (500 litres), but it's for my goldfish so...)

[have-you-seen-this-animal]

Have you seen an Australian prowfish (Family: Pataecidae)?

I have now

Yes, in photos/videos

Yes, irl

I'm not sure

Voting ended onNov 24, 2024

Photos thanks to the Australian Museum!

[dandbuck]

Fishy fishy yum yum

I need to effective immediately get better at drawing scales the idea of them killed me

[luminarystimboards]

Some beautiful White Striped Eel Catfish! These Juveniles are from Australia! These GIFs are free to use with credit; please link back to this post!

𓆝 𓆟 𓆞

[drhoz]

#2963 - Girella tricuspidata - Luderick

One of a bunch of stuff I somehow failed to cover from my last time in Sydney.

A Nibbler first formally described as Boops tricuspidatus in 1824 by Jean René Constant Quoy & Joseph Paul Gaimard, but also as Doydixodon australis and Aplodon margaritiferum. Common names include parore in New Zealand, black bream, black snapper, blackfish, or, unfortunately, ni󠀡󠀡g󠀡󠀡g󠀡󠀡er fish.

Quoy & Gaimard gave the type location as Shark Bay, Western Australia, which is weird since it isn't found there.  Native to eastern Australia and New Zealand, where schools feed on seaweed and small invertebrates.

For some reason, the species developed a poor reputation in New Zealand in the early colonial period, allegedly due to bad flavour, but it remains a popular target fish and sometimes a commercial fishery in Australia. Anglers catch them using seaweed as bait.

Botany Bay near Bare Island, Sydney, NSW.

[natureisthegreatestartist]

What in the world is this? It’s one of the most magical-looking marine creatures, a leafy seadragon. Bizarre and beautiful, yes?