Profile: Sascha Schulz
- Name:
- Sascha Schulz
Comments
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C. sandayeri to the left at the start?
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Range extension: Minnamurra River, May 2010. Depth 1m. One of two juveniles sighted on the day.
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The image above was taken at a depth of 30cm, at approximately 2 am in the morning. Various species of fish began to gather in the shallows after dark, and by 10 pm that night the shallows around the lake's edge had numerous fish, including Murray Cod, Redfin and Gudgeons, "sleeping" amongst the stones and weeds.
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Also a correction, locations should be:
P. dinjerra - nw WA
P. georgianus - NSW to WA (Lancelin)
P. wrighti - Bass strait to WA (Exmouth)
P. sp (dentex) - QLD and Lord Howe.
Cutting and pasting text is not my forte...
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For people wishing to read the 2006 paper and get access to the identification key see:
http://136.154.202.60/pages/3396/63_1-vaniz_jelks.pdf
For the avid underwater photographers out there I have bad news. The key is based on fin ray, scale and gill raker counts, so visual ID is quite difficult. Its probably best (but not certain) to base ID's on location and head shape. But of course feel free to post your photos here, and Mark and I will have a crack at it for you!
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Nice one Richard!
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Mark,
In 2006 William Smith-Vaniz and Howard Jelks published a paper in the Memoirs of Museum Victoria reworking the existing classification of Australian Pseudocaranx species entitled "Australian trevallies of the genus Pseudocaranx (Teleostei: Carangidae), with a description of a new species from Western Australia".
To summarise, the species shown in Dave Harasti's photos as Pseudocaranx dentex is actually P. georgianus; a new species, P. dinjerra is found only in north-western WA; P. wrighti is found in QLD and Lord Howe waters; and a species similar to the original P. dentex (P. sp. "dentex") can be found off QLD and at Lord Howe.
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Hi LK,
If you look at the large version of the headshot of a Weedy Seadragon (second from the top), you will see small white dots in the background of the photo. Those white dots are mysid shrimps, which the Weedy Seadragon was hunting.
Weedy Seadragons slowly float towards their prey, the act of capture being a small dart of the head forwards and the shrimps are sucked into the long mouth tube.
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Hi Tom,
The fish in your photo is a large Centropogon australis, which is commonly known as a Fortescue. Gymnapistes marmoratus (Soldier) differs from the similar C. australis by the absence of scales on its body, which C. australis does posses. The scales are clearly visible in your lovely photo.
G. mamrmoratus also has a distinctive protruding lateral line (see photos on right of page), which is first visible posterior to the opercular margin, and terminates on the caudal peduncle.
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I can answer this one Mark.
There were several Barramundi spotted, both on the south side near Rose Bay, in Darling Harbour and near Manly. Comparison of scale specimens from a fish speared in the harbour, with scales from shop bought fish suggested to me the Barramundi swimming around Sydney were originally from fish farms. But I had nothing to back that up at the time.
A month or two later investigations by NSW Fisheries revealed that local Bhuddists had been purchasing live Barramundi and other species from fish retailer and releasing them as an act of kindness.
Generous though this act seemed, these fish are not suited to our climate and would have perished after a short time. The people responsible were not charged with anything, but fisheries officers did explain about the risk of introducing parasites and disease to local waters, as well as the futility of the releases. Once this was cleared up the practice stopped.
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Hi Will,
Glad to see your'e so keen to contribute to the AMS website!
The easiest thing for you to do is to use the "Upload image, movie or audio" function available when you add a comment to a page. This uploads your image into the database and adds a link in your comment.
cheers
Sascha
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Are we sure this is U. lineatus and not Parupeneus spilurus?
The head shape is too sloped when compared to U. lineatus,
the eye width into snout length ration seems too high,
the barbels too short (extend to origin of pelvic fin in U. lineatus),
and the yellow/gold edging and pink/purple central marking of the scales all suggest P. spilurus to me...
Could be wrong. Resting vs active behaviour driven colouration changes can be suprising.
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In reference to my image above:
The fish pictured was one of a pair. The two stuck close together while feeding on what appeared to be bryazoans encrusting the pylons of the wharf. They also picked at the surface of Ecklonia kelp, which again, appeared to be feeding behaviour.
If the pair was seperated during their movements by more than a metre or so, one of them would quickly dash back to find its partner.
Judging by their size, they were juveniles.
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In reference to my image above:
The fish pictured was one of a pair. The two stuck close together while feeding on what appeared to be bryazoans encrusting the pylons of the wharf. They also picked at the surface of Ecklonia kelp, which again, appeared to be feeding behaviour.
If the pair was seperated during their movements by more than a metre or so, one of them would quickly dash back to find its partner.
Judging by their size, they were juveniles.
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The Bluebottle-fish pictured was captured and kept in an aquarium for 2 days, after it which developed swimming problems and died. It was in poor condition to begin with. The rockpool it was found in also contained numerous bluebottles, as well as other Bluebottle-fish.
Some rough research revealed that this species has not been kept in aquaria succesfully. It is presumed to feed on the gonad tissue of the bluebottle.
From (rather hazardous) personal observation of this species in the wild, it appears to be immune to the bluebottle toxins.
The pictured fish is now registered in the AMS collection.
Mark: If you could put up the rego number? :-) -
I think all the scientists involved in this project deserve a great deal of kudos for their many years of dedication and perseverance in the face of continual budget cuts and funding shortages.
But something that isn't mentioned here is the tireless work of collection managers, technicians and volunteers who work behind the scenes of the world's museums. Without them, our taxonomists would be even more restricted than they are now. Well done the lot of you! - Mark, are these fish found in shallow waters at all. Say at diveable depths?
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Hi Erik, great to see you on here!
The class Osteichthyes aka "Bony Fishes" has (had) two sub-classes namely the Actinopterygii (Ray-finned Fishes) and the Sarcopterygii (Lobe-finned Fishes).
The Actinopterygii includes most extant bony fish species, whereas the Sarcopterygii contains less than a dozen species of Lungfish and Coelacanths.
Some variations of the classification system elevate the Osteichthyes to "Superclass", and the Actinopterygii and Sarcopterygii to class status, and that is what is being used here.
The study of deep level phylogenetics has advanced considerably in recent years as genetic work has become more commonplace and I suspect we will see the classification "tree" evolve (ha!) a great deal over the years to come. - Hello Peppercorn, you're quiet right that "wrasse" is the English language name for the family Labridae. One notable feature of this family is that almost all species are protogynous. This means that they are born female, and change sex to a male later on in life. As they mature and change sex their colouring changes (see photos above). This is known as sexual dimorphism. The closely related Scaridae (Parrotfishes) share this feature.
- Attached is an image of a S. cardinalis with a parasite in the eye. It appears to be some kind of worm, possbily a nematode?
- Attached is an image of a female N.gymnogenis with two parasitic isopods. The larger isopod is the female.
- Would I be correct in assuming the ossicles are the half-moon shaped structures visible in the photo of the clavus?
- Shelly Beach is a great spot for finding the juveniles of fish species that are more common in tropical waters. The larvae of these species can drift south on the East Australian Current for weeks, covering many hundreds of kilometres. The geomorphology of Shelly Beach means it acts as a larval trap, accounting for the relatively high abundance of tropical juveniles. The vast majority of these "vagrants" do not survive the cold winters.
- Just a note on the abundance of C. spectabilis based on my experience. North of Batemans Bay the species may well be considered rare, however its abundance increases as you go south, and once you reach the port of Eden near the NSW/VIC border, it is the most common morwong species encountered in shallow water (<20m). This coincides with a decrease in Red Morwong (C. fuscus) abundance, the species being virtually absent south of Eden.
- Minnamurra River, March 2009. Depth 3m.
- Bass Point, January 2005. Depth of 6m.