The Australian herring (''Arripis georgianus''), also known as the ruff, tommy ruff, or Australian ruff, is one of four Australasian fish species within the genus ''

Arripis ''Arripis'' is a genus of marine fishes from Australia and New Zealand, known as Australian salmon, kahawai and Australian herring. They are the only members of the family Arripidae. Despite the common name, Australian salmon are not related t ...

''. It closely resembles its sister species, the

Australian salmon ''Arripis trutta'', known as kahawai in New Zealand and as the Australian salmon in Australia, is a South Pacific marine fish and one of the four extant species within the genus '' Arripis'', native to the cooler waters around the southeastern ...

, although it grows to a smaller size. Like the other members of its genus, it is found in cooler waters around the southern coast of

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a Sovereign state, sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous List of islands of Australia, sma ...

.* Dianne J. Bray, 2011, Australian Herring, Arripis georgianus, in Fishes of Australia, accessed 10 Sep 2014, http://www.fishesofaustralia.net.au/home/species/405 It is not biologically related to the

herring Herring are forage fish, mostly belonging to the family of Clupeidae. Herring often move in large schools around fishing banks and near the coast, found particularly in shallow, temperate waters of the North Pacific and North Atlantic Oceans, i ...

family

Clupeidae Clupeidae is a family of ray-finned fishes, comprising, for instance, the herrings, shads, sardines, hilsa, and menhadens. The clupeoids include many of the most important food fishes in the world, and are also commonly caught for production of ...

. In Australia, additional vernacular names used for this fish include bull herring, herring, rough, ruffies, sea herring, tommy, tommy rough and South Australian roughy. Ruff is the global fisheries name used by the

Food and Agriculture Organization The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO)french: link=no, Organisation des Nations unies pour l'alimentation et l'agriculture; it, Organizzazione delle Nazioni Unite per l'Alimentazione e l'Agricoltura is an intern ...

Description

The Australian herring has a streamlined, moderately deep and slightly elongate body which is somewhat compressed and has a relatively thin caudal peduncle. It has a quite small head with rather large eyes and a moderately large oblique mouth with the

maxilla The maxilla (plural: ''maxillae'' ) in vertebrates is the upper fixed (not fixed in Neopterygii) bone of the jaw formed from the fusion of two maxillary bones. In humans, the upper jaw includes the hard palate in the front of the mouth. The t ...

e extending as far as the level of the centre of eyes. It has a narrow band of small, pointed teeth on each jaw. It has an almost straight

lateral line The lateral line, also called the lateral line organ (LLO), is a system of sensory organs found in fish, used to detect movement, vibration, and pressure gradients in the surrounding water. The sensory ability is achieved via modified epithelial ...

. The whole of the head and body, except for the lower jaw, snout and over the eyes is covered in small, finely

ctenoid A fish scale is a small rigid plate that grows out of the skin of a fish. The skin of most jawed fishes is covered with these protective scales, which can also provide effective camouflage through the use of reflection and colouration, as ...

scales. The long

dorsal fin A dorsal fin is a fin located on the back of most marine and freshwater vertebrates within various taxa of the animal kingdom. Many species of animals possessing dorsal fins are not particularly closely related to each other, though through conv ...

has a small notch between the higher spiny and the soft rayed parts, They have a small

anal fin Fins are distinctive anatomical features composed of bony spines or rays protruding from the body of a fish. They are covered with skin and joined together either in a webbed fashion, as seen in most bony fish, or similar to a flipper, as se ...

which is around half the length of the soft part of the dorsal fin. The

caudal fin Fins are distinctive anatomical features composed of bony spines or rays protruding from the body of a fish. They are covered with skin and joined together either in a webbed fashion, as seen in most bony fish, or similar to a flipper, as se ...

is deeply forked, the

pectoral fin Fins are distinctive anatomical features composed of bony spines or rays protruding from the body of a fish. They are covered with skin and joined together either in a webbed fashion, as seen in most bony fish, or similar to a flipper, as ...

s are small and the

pelvic fin Pelvic fins or ventral fins are paired fins located on the ventral surface of fish. The paired pelvic fins are homologous to the hindlimbs of tetrapods. Structure and function Structure In actinopterygians, the pelvic fin consists of two en ...

s are moderately sized, having their origin underneath the centre of the pectoral fin base and extending midway to the anus. Australian herring are similar to the juveniles of the congeneric

and differ from that species by their comparatively larger yellow and black eye and rounder head. This species is silver in colour with black tips on tail and gold spots along the upper body. The juveniles have dark golden bars on their flanks. The dorsal fin contains 9 spines and 16 soft rays and the anal fin has 3 spines and 10 soft rays. The maximum

fork length Fish measurement is the measuring of individual fish and various parts of their anatomies. These data are used in many areas of ichthyology, including taxonomy and fisheries biology. Overall length * Standard length (SL) is the length of a fish m ...

recorded is but they are commonly .

Distribution

The Australian herring is

endemic Endemism is the state of a species being found in a single defined geographic location, such as an island, state, nation, country or other defined zone; organisms that are indigenous to a place are not endemic to it if they are also found elsew ...

to the temperate seas of southern Australia from the Swan River in

Western Australia Western Australia (commonly abbreviated as WA) is a state of Australia occupying the western percent of the land area of Australia excluding external territories. It is bounded by the Indian Ocean to the north and west, the Southern Ocean to th ...

along the south coast and along the east coast as far north as

Forster, New South Wales Forster is a coastal town in the Mid North Coast region of New South Wales, Australia, in the Mid-Coast Council LGA, about 308 km north-north-east of Sydney. It is immediately adjacent to its twin, Tuncurry, which is the smaller of the two ...

. It is also found around Tasmania.

Habitat and biology

Australian herring form large schools in sea-grass meadows, off beaches, over reefs, in coastal bays and in estuaries. They are normally found near the surface, going no deeper than a few metres. They are predators feeding on smaller fishes and some invertebrates which live among the weed beds and sea grass meadows. These fish reach sexual maturity at around 2–3 years of age and once mature they move westwards along the Australian coast to an area of the southwestern coast where they

spawn Spawn or spawning may refer to: * Spawn (biology), the eggs and sperm of aquatic animals Arts, entertainment, and media * Spawn (character), a fictional character in the comic series of the same name and in the associated franchise ** '' Spawn: ...

alongside adults resident in that area. The spawning takes place in April to June. The fertility of the females depends on their size, a long individual may lay 50,000 eggs while a females ay lay 200,000 eggs in a spawning season. The eggs, larvae and juveniles are

planktonic Plankton are the diverse collection of organisms found in water (or air) that are unable to propel themselves against a current (or wind). The individual organisms constituting plankton are called plankters. In the ocean, they provide a crucia ...

and drift southwards along the western coast of Australia and eastward along its south coast by the prevailing winds and currents, the

Leeuwin Current The Leeuwin Current is a warm ocean current which flows southwards near the western coast of Australia. It rounds Cape Leeuwin to enter the waters south of Australia where its influence extends as far as Tasmania. Discovery The existence of the ...

being particularly important in this. At length the juveniles settle in the winter and spring using nursery sites along the south coast. Some remain close to where the spawning grounds are along the southern part of the western coast of Western Australia.

Geographe Bay Geographe Bay is in the south-west of Western Australia around 220 km southwest of Perth. The bay was named in May 1801 by French explorer Nicolas Baudin, after his ship, ''Géographe''. The bay is a wide curve of coastline extending from ...

appears to be a very important source of recruitment for the west coast population. Once they have spawned, the adult fish remain off the west coast of Western Australia and do not return to the south coast. They disperse along the coast, they move into estuaries and go as far north as

Shark Bay Shark Bay (Malgana: ''Gathaagudu'', "two waters") is a World Heritage Site in the Gascoyne region of Western Australia. The http://www.environment.gov.au/heritage/places/world/shark-bay area is located approximately north of Perth, on the ...

Fisheries

In most of Australia this is a species which is considered to be a desirable recreational fish. However, in Western Australia it is regarded as a commercially important species for fisheries and has been caught using lines,

gill net Gillnetting is a fishing method that uses gillnets: vertical panels of netting that hang from a line with regularly spaced floaters that hold the line on the surface of the water. The floats are sometimes called "corks" and the line with corks is ...

s and

seine net Seine fishing (or seine-haul fishing; ) is a method of fishing that employs a surrounding net, called a seine, that hangs vertically in the water with its bottom edge held down by weights and its top edge buoyed by floats. Seine nets can be dep ...

s. They were fished for using 'G' trap nets but following scientific advice on the health of the stock this was banned in 2015. It has a soft, slightly oily flesh and is thought of as a high quality food fish.

Taxonomy and species description

The Australian herring was first formally described as ''Centropristes georgianus'' in 1831 by Achille Valenciennes with the type locality given as

King George Sound King George Sound ( nys , Menang Koort) is a sound on the south coast of Western Australia. Named King George the Third's Sound in 1791, it was referred to as King George's Sound from 1805. The name "King George Sound" gradually came into use ...

in Western Australia. When

Leonard Jenyns Leonard Jenyns (25 May 1800 – 1 September 1893) was an English clergyman, author and naturalist. He was forced to take on the name Leonard Blomefield to receive an inheritance. He is chiefly remembered for his detailed phenology observations ...

placed it in the new

genus Genus ( plural genera ) is a taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of extant taxon, living and fossil organisms as well as Virus classification#ICTV classification, viruses. In the hierarchy of biological classification, genus com ...

'' this was a

monospecific In biology, a monotypic taxon is a taxonomic group (taxon) that contains only one immediately subordinate taxon. A monotypic species is one that does not include subspecies or smaller, infraspecific taxa. In the case of genera, the term "unispec ...

genus and ''Arripis georgianus'' was therefore the

type species In zoological nomenclature, a type species (''species typica'') is the species name with which the name of a genus or subgenus is considered to be permanently taxonomically associated, i.e., the species that contains the biological type specimen ...

References

* *

External links

Fisheries Western Australia, Australian Herring Fact Sheet
{{Authority control

Australian herring The Australian herring (''Arripis georgianus''), also known as the ruff, tommy ruff, or Australian ruff, is one of four Australasian fish species within the genus '' Arripis''. It closely resembles its sister species, the Australian salmon, alth ...

Marine fish of Southern Australia