Australian Fish

Fish are vertebrates that live their entire lives in water, breathe through gills and don’t go through the kind of dramatic life-change that amphibians do (although some, like the lungfish, have developed ways of occasionally breathing in air).

Australia’s freshwater fish have all evolved relatively recently from marine ancestors – we don’t have the families common in other continents with a long evolutionary history of freshwater life.

No attempt will be made here to cover the tremendous divsersity of fish, just a few points of interest here:

The Australian lungfish, a feshwater species capable of breathing in air, is considered a ‘living fossil’ and is found in some of Queensland’s rivers. Only five other species occur worldwide, all in Africa and South American waters. It is strictly protected.

The eels in Australian rivers start their lives near New Caledonia and other part sof the southwest Pacific, make a journey to Australia where they live for 12 years or more in the rivers of the east coast, then find their way back to their birthplace to breed. There are usually at least a couple resident on the Araucaria property.

The world’s largest fish, the whale-shark, visits the western coast each year. Carefully-controlled diving near these huge creatures (which feed only on plankton) is a popular tourist activity at Ningaloo.

The world-famous Great Barrier Reef harbours a vast and fascinating diversity of fish, some of which featured in the popular animation film ‘Finding Nemo.’

The strange leafy sea-dragon, related to sea-horses, can sometimes be seen by divers near Kangaroo Island and other parts of the southern coastline.