The Freshwater Fishes of Australia

Abstract

Whilst the seas around Australia are inhabited by well over two thousand distinct species of fishes, the freshwater rivers are the preserves of a hardy few, only about 180 kinds in all the continent, if we exclude introduced forms, such as trout, and occasional stragglers into freshwater, like gobies, soles, stingrays, toadoes, anchovies, and other estuarine fishes. So only about 8 % of the Australian fish-species are freshwater. By comparison with other continents, Australia has not a large freshwater fauna, due to the absence of many large rivers and the prevalence of droughts, and some curious local water-conditions. We find no trace of certain families of fishes commonly found in the rivers of countries the other side of Wallace‘s Line. There are no native members of the carp tribe (Cyprinidae), no killifishes (Cyprinodontidae) and very few catfish es. In Australia, we have no torrent-inhabiting fishes with special suckers on their fins or bodies for adhering to rocks, as some countries have (unless we except the discs of the Lampreys). Also our fishes are not troubled by freezing. Galaxias findlayi enjoys life above the snowline but swims to lower warmer levels during the winter.