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60 61</head> 62<body> 63 <!-- Primary Page Layout --> 64 <div id="wrapper"> 65 <div id="main"> 66 <div class="container"> 67 <header class="clearfix"> 68 <div class="sixteen columns"> 69 <div class="searchbox"> 70 <form action="/search" method="get" id="searchForm"> 71 <input type="text" id="q" name="q" value="" AutoCompleteType="disabled" autocomplete="off" /> 72 <input type="submit" value="submit" id="searchButton" /> 73 </form> 74 </div> 75 </div> 76 <div class="three columns logo"> 77 <a href="/"> 78 <img src="/images/logo_fishes.png" height="50" width="160" alt="Fishes of Australia Logo"/> 79 </a> 80 </div> 81 <nav class="thirteen columns"> 82 <ul class="menu"> 83 <li><a href="/">Home</a></li> 84 <li><a href="/home/content/166">About Fishes</a></li> 85 <li><a href="/Home/ClassList">Browse Classification</a></li> 86 <li><a href="/home/content/162">Identifying Fishes</a></li> 87 <li><a href="/home/content/157">Fishes and People</a></li> 88 <li><a href="/home/gallery">Gallery</a></li> 89</ul> 90 </nav> 91 </header> 92 <div id="content"> 93 <div class="sixteen columns"> 94 <div class="contentmenu"> 95 <ul class="menuhorizontal"> 96 <li> 97 <span class="arrow"></span> 98 <a class="active" href="/home/content/166">Introduction to Australia's Fishes</a> 99 </li> 100 <li><a href="/home/content/164">Freshwater Fishes </a></li> 101 <li><a href="/home/content/165">Non-native Fishes </a></li> 102 <li><a href="/home/content/148">What's in a Name?</a></li> 103 </ul> 104 </div> 105 <div class="contentpage rt"> 106 <h1>Introduction to Australia's Fishes</h1> 107 108 109 110 <p></p> 111<p>Fishes are the largest and most diverse group of vertebrate animals, with more than 37,400 valid described species (Fricke, Eschmeyer & Van der Laan (eds) 2025). This is many, many more species than the combined total of all other vertebrates (amphibians, reptiles, birds and mammals). </p><p>Under the term "fishes" we include the primitive jawless hagfishes and lampreys, sharks, rays and chimaeras, and the many and diverse groups of bony fishes.</p> 112<p>White (1790) described the first Australian fishes that were actually collected in Australia. Although some wide-ranging species with distributions that include Australia had already been described, White's eight species came from Botany Bay, rather than from elsewhere. Our diverse and often unique fish fauna now numbers more than 5780 recorded species (in Australia's EEZ), and we're still counting. </p> 113<p>For those interested in reading more about the discovery of Australia's fishes, find a copy of Brian Saunders beautifully written and illustrated <em>Discovery of Australia's fishes : a history of Australian ichthyology to 1930</em>.</p> 114<p>Australiaâs marine environment is enormous, covering an area of about 9 million km<sup>2</sup> with more than 36,000 km of coastline (including external territories outside Antarctica). That figure actually needs updating as Australia recently extended its maritime boundaries.</p> 115<p>Habitats range from the coral reefs and tropical estuaries of the north, to cold temperate rocky reefs along the southern coast, plus oceanic and deep sea habitats beyond the continental slope, and Antarctic and subantarctic habitats in the Southern Ocean. As a result, Australia has one of the largest and most diverse marine fish faunas in the world. </p> 116<p>Fishes not only come in an impressive array of shapes and sizes â they occur in almost all aquatic environments in Australia. These include the hot desert springs, freshwater rivers, streams and lakes found on land, to mangrove swamps, coral reefs, seagrass meadows, turbulent coastal kelp forests, the twilight zone and abyss of the deep-sea, and the freezing waters of the Southern Ocean.</p> 117<p>The freshwater component of the fauna is very small relative to the numbers of freshwater fishes elsewhere in the world (Merrick 2006). Although small in number, our fauna is diverse and unique, and includes jawless lampreys, sharks, sawfishes, the iconic lungfish, eels, galaxiids, hardyheads, rainbowfishes, cods, grunters, gobies, gudgeons and soles. What's more - recent molecular studies have 'uncovered' a many new freshwater species, including galaxiids, river blackfish, pygmy perch and grunter
117s among others.</p> 118<p>Like fishes everywhere, the distributions of Australiaâs fishes are determined by their biology, behaviour and historical origins. Most (nearly 75%) live in tropical marine environments. Northern Australia sits on the edge of the âCoral Triangleâ, the Indo-Australian Archipelago, which has the highest biodiversity of marine fishes in the world. </p> 119<p>Almost a quarter of Australia's fishes are endemic, meaning that they are found nowhere else in the world - and most of these (60%) live in cooler southern waters (Hoese <i>et al.</i> 2006).</p> 120<p>The total number of Australian fishes continues to rise each year when new species are discovered or when species known to occur elsewhere are found in our waters.</p> 121<p><b><br></b></p> 122<p><b>References</b></p> 123<p>Fricke, R.. & Fong, J.D. 2025. Species of Fishes by family/subfamily. <b><a href="https://researcharchive.calacademy.org/research/ichthyology/catalog/SpeciesByFamily.asp">https://researcharchive.calacademy.org/research/ichthyology/catalog/SpeciesByFamily.asp</a></b></p> 124<p>Hoese, D.F., Bray, D.J., Paxton, J.R. & Allen, G.R. 2006. Introduction, pp 1-27. <em>In</em> Beesley, P.A. & A. Wells (eds) <i>Zoological Catalogue of Australia, Volume 35</i>. Australia : ABRS & CSIRO Publishing Parts 1-3, 2178 pp.</p> 125<p>Merrick, J.R. 2006. Australasian freshwater fish faunas: diversity, interrelationships, radiations and conservation, pp.195-224. <em>In</em> Merrick, J.R., M. Archer, G.M. Hickey <em>and</em> M.S.Y. Lee (eds) <em>Evolution and Biogeography of Australasian Vertebrates</em>. Oatlands, NSW: Auscipub Pty Ltd, pp. xxvii + 942.</p> 126<p>Paxton, J.R., G.R. Allen & D.F. Hoese. 2006. Australian marine fishes: zoogeography, endemics and conservation, pp. 185-194. <em>In</em> Merrick, J.R., M. Archer, G.M. Hickey & M.S.Y. Lee (eds) <em>Evolution and Biogeography of Australasian Vertebrates</em>. Oatlands, NSW: Auscipub Pty Ltd, pp. xxvii + 942.<b></b></p><p>Raadik, T.A. 2014. Fifteen from one: a revision of the <i>Galaxias olidus</i> Günther, 1866 complex (Teleostei, Galaxiidae) in south-eastern Australia recognises three previously described taxa and describes 12 new species. <i>Zootaxa</i> 3898 (1): 1-198.</p> 127<p>Saunders, B.G. 2012. <em>Discovery of Australia's Fishes. A History of Australian Ichthyology to 1930</em>. CSIRO Publishing, Collingwood, Victoria : 570 pp.</p><p>Shelley, J.J., Delaval, A. & Le Feuvre, M.C. 2017. A revision of the grunter genus <i>Syncomistes</i> (Teleostei, Terapontidae, <i>Syncomistes</i>) with descriptions of seven new species from the Kimberley region, northwestern Australia.<i> Zootaxa</i> 4367(1): 1-103 DOI: <b><a href="http://www.mapress.com/j/zt/article/view/zootaxa.4367.1.1">http://dx.doi.org/10.11646/zootaxa.4367.1.1</a></b></p> 128<p>White, J. 1790. <i>Journal of a voyage to New South Wales. </i>Debrett, London. 299 pp.<b></b></p><p><br></p><p><b>Cite this page as</b>:</p><p>Bray, D.J. 2025. Introduction to Australia's Fishes, <i>in</i> Bray, D.J. & Gomon, M.F. (eds). Fishes of Australia. Museums Victoria and OzFishNet, accessed [date viewed], <b><a href="https://fishesofaustralia.net.au/">http://fishesofaustralia.net.au/</a></b></p> 129 130 <hr /> 131 Author: Bray, D.J. 2025 132 133 134 </div> 135</div> 136 </div> 137 </div> 138 </div> 139 </div> 140 <footer> <div class="upper"> 141 <div class="wrapper"> 142 <a class="logo" href="http://ozfishnet.org" target="_blank"><img src="/images/logo_ozfishnet.png" height="43" width="41" alt="OzFishNet logo" /></a> 143 <a class="logo" href="http://museumsvictoria.com.au" target="_blank"><img src="/images/logo_mv.png" alt="Museums Victoria logo" /></a> 144 <div class="credit"> 145 Hosted by Museums Victoria on<br /> 146 behalf of the OzFishNet community. 147 </div> 148 <div class="sociallink"> 149 Follow us on <a href="https://www.facebook.com/pages/Fishes-of-Australia/423318427700814" target="_blank"><img src="/images/icon_facebook.png" alt="Facebook logo"/></a><a href="https://twitter.com/FishesAustralia" target="_blank"><img src="/images/icon_twitter.png" alt="Twitter logo"/></a><a href="https://www.instagram.com/fishesofaustralia/" target="_blank"><img src="/images/icon_instagram.png" alt="Instagram logo"/></a> 150 </div> 151 <div class="footerlinks"> 152 <a href="/home/partners">Partners</a> 153 <a href="/home/about">About</a> 154 <a href="/home/rights" class="footerlink">Rights</a> 155 <a href="/home/resources">Resources</a> 156 <a href="/home/glossaryList" class="last">Glossary</a> 157 </div> 158 </div> 159 </div> 160 <div class="lower"> 161 <div class="wrapper"> 162 <a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/au/">
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