The Pedder galaxias (''Galaxias pedderensis'') is an Australian freshwater fish. It is considered to be extinct in the wild since 2005 by the

EPBC Act The ''Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999'' (Cth) is an Act of the Parliament of Australia that provides a framework for protection of the Australian environment, including its biodiversity and its natural and cultu ...

, and was originally found only in

Lake Pedder Lake Pedder, once a glacial outwash lake, is a man-made impoundment and diversion lake located in the southwest of Tasmania, Australia. In addition to its natural catchment from the Frankland Range, the lake is formed by the 1972 damming of the ...

Tasmania ) , nickname = , image_map = Tasmania in Australia.svg , map_caption = Location of Tasmania in AustraliaCoordinates: , subdivision_type = Country , subdi ...

Range

Originally recorded only in Lake Pedder and inflowing streams, after the construction of the Huon-Serpentine dam in 1972 (the "new" Lake Pedder), its range expanded initially into

Lake Gordon Lake Gordon is a man-made reservoir created by the Gordon Dam, located on the upper reaches of the Gordon River in the south-west region of Tasmania, Australia. Features The reservoir was formed in the early 1970s as a result of the dam constr ...

and

Wedge River A wedge is a triangle, triangular shaped tool, and is a portable inclined plane, and one of the six simple machines. It can be used to separate two objects or portions of an object, lift up an object, or hold an object in place. It functions b ...

. However, by 1980 it had become very rare and no new specimens have been captured in the wild since 1996. Introduced trout are implicated as a major factor in the decline of this species. The species survives in two translocated populations outside its original range, one at Lake Oberon in the Western Arthurs mountain range and one at a modified water supply dam near

Strathgordon Strathgordon is a rural locality in the local government area (LGA) of Derwent Valley in the South-east LGA region of Tasmania. The locality is about west of the town of New Norfolk. The 2016 census recorded a population of 15 for the state s ...

Description

A small greenish-brown fish, off-white to silvery belly, a profuse irregular and highly variable pattern of alternating off-white and brownish contrasting bands extending into the base of the fins and breaking up into fine spots on the lower part of the sides. Length to 160 mm.

Habitat

Before the construction of the new lake, this species preferred Lake Pedder itself which was quite shallow surrounded by white sandy beaches and small rooted aquatic vegetation as well as in swamps and low velocity waters with abundant instream organic debris and overhanging terrestrial vegetation. Diet consists of small

invertebrate Invertebrates are a paraphyletic group of animals that neither possess nor develop a vertebral column (commonly known as a ''backbone'' or ''spine''), derived from the notochord. This is a grouping including all animals apart from the chordate ...

s, particularly

arthropod Arthropods (, (gen. ποδός)) are invertebrate animals with an exoskeleton, a Segmentation (biology), segmented body, and paired jointed appendages. Arthropods form the phylum Arthropoda. They are distinguished by their jointed limbs and Arth ...

s and aquatic insect

larva A larva (; plural larvae ) is a distinct juvenile form many animals undergo before metamorphosis into adults. Animals with indirect development such as insects, amphibians, or cnidarians typically have a larval phase of their life cycle. The ...

crustacean Crustaceans (Crustacea, ) form a large, diverse arthropod taxon which includes such animals as decapods, seed shrimp, branchiopods, fish lice, krill, remipedes, isopods, barnacles, copepods, amphipods and mantis shrimp. The crustacean group ...

s and terrestrial

insect Insects (from Latin ') are pancrustacean hexapod invertebrates of the class Insecta. They are the largest group within the arthropod phylum. Insects have a chitinous exoskeleton, a three-part body ( head, thorax and abdomen), three pairs ...

s especially

beetle Beetles are insects that form the order Coleoptera (), in the superorder Endopterygota. Their front pair of wings are hardened into wing-cases, elytra, distinguishing them from most other insects. The Coleoptera, with about 400,000 describ ...

flies Flies are insects of the order Diptera, the name being derived from the Greek δι- ''di-'' "two", and πτερόν ''pteron'' "wing". Insects of this order use only a single pair of wings to fly, the hindwings having evolved into advanced ...

cicada The cicadas () are a superfamily, the Cicadoidea, of insects in the order Hemiptera (true bugs). They are in the suborder Auchenorrhyncha, along with smaller jumping bugs such as leafhoppers and froghoppers. The superfamily is divided into two ...

s etc.

Conservation status

*Extinct in the wild status for the

since 2005. *Listed as endangered by the

IUCN The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN; officially International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources) is an international organization working in the field of nature conservation and sustainable use of natu ...

since 2019.

Reproduction

Females are larger than males. Male

genital papilla The genital papilla is an anatomical feature of the external genitalia of some animals. In mammals In mammals, the genital papilla is a part of female external genitalia not present in humans, which appears as a small, fleshy flab of tissue. The pa ...

narrow, whereas female are broad and rounded, most noticeable during breeding season. 150 to 1,200 eggs averaging 1.9 mm to 2.3 mm in diameter when water hardened. Spawning reported to occur in spring (October) at water temperatures of 6.7 to 7.5

°C The degree Celsius is the unit of temperature on the Celsius scale (originally known as the centigrade scale outside Sweden), one of two temperature scales used in the International System of Units (SI), the other being the Kelvin scale. The ...

References

External links

Australian Department of the Environment and Heritage (2006). ''Galaxias pedderensis'' in Species Profile and Threats Database, Department of the Environment and Heritage, Canberra.

Fishbase

Tasmanian Government DPIWE Info Page
{{Taxonbar, from=Q1097860

Pedder galaxias The Pedder galaxias (''Galaxias pedderensis'') is an Australian freshwater fish. It is considered to be extinct in the wild since 2005 by the EPBC Act, and was originally found only in Lake Pedder in Tasmania. Range Originally recorded only i ...

Lake Pedder Freshwater fish of Tasmania South West Tasmania