Anatomy: long, tubular body; small, flattened head; scaleless; single dorsal and anal fins far back on their body; ridges on their fins help with climbing rocks; often adorned with stripes or mottled, star-like patterns
Diet: insect larvae and adults, plankton
Habitat: mainly freshwater, high-altitude, cold, upland rivers, streams, and lakes; some spend part of their life cycle in saltwater; found in temperate latitudes, with only one subtropical species known
Evolved in: Late Cretaceous
(source)
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The Common Galaxias (Galaxias maculatus) may be the most widely naturally distributed freshwater fish in the Southern Hemisphere.
Some galaxiids live in fresh water all their lives, but many have a partially marine lifecycle. In these cases, larvae are hatched in a river, but are washed downstream to the ocean, later returning to rivers as juveniles to complete their development to full adulthood. This pattern differs from that of salmon, which only return to fresh water to breed, and is described as amphidromous.
The major distinguishing feature of the Climbing Galaxias, or Kōaro, (Galaxias brevipinnis) (image 1) is its ability to climb up very steep surfaces such as waterfalls, wet rocks, and the sluices of dams using its broad and downward facing pectoral and pelvic fins. Even juvenile Climbing Galaxias are capable of climbing up and over the sides of buckets after being trapped in whitebait nets.
The tiny, critically endangered Lowland Longjaw Galaxias (Galaxias cobitinis) is New Zealand’s rarest native fish. In 2018 they were found to have a population of less than 250 mature adults.
The Cape Galaxias (Galaxias zebratus) is native to South Africa, and is the only galaxiid species that naturally lives outside of South America, Australia, and New Zealand.
The largest galaxiid is the Giant Kōkopu (Galaxias argenteus) (image 4), which can grow up to 58 cm (1.9 ft) long and weigh up to 2.7 kg (6 lb).
Exotic salmonids have been introduced to many different land masses (ex: Australia, New Zealand, Chile) to provide fishing for anglers, with no thought as to impacts on native fish, or attempts to preserve salmonid-free habitats for them. This has led to the localized extinction of numerous galaxiid species, and many species are threatened as a whole, as they are preyed on and/or must compete with invasive salmonids.
Despite many species being threatened or endangered, juvenile galaxiids, called “whitebait”, are often fished as a delicacy. Fine mesh nets are set out to pull them up on their migration back to freshwater. New Zealand whitebait is the most expensive food fish in the world, by weight.
The waikaka, or black mudfish, is a real fish out of water! This species lives in the wetlands and peat lakes of New Zealand, and in the summer their habitat often dries up. To cope, black mudfish burrow intro the mud and lower their metabolism to hibernate. During these months, the fish will absorb oxygen directly through their skin, much like amphibians!
(Image: A black mudfish (Neochanna diversus) by Rod Morris)
A small, scaleless, non-migratory freshwater fish endemic to a small upland area in central Victoria, Australia. Barred galaxias now exist only in trout-free streams with physical barriers to exclude upstream invasion by trout.
