The crested bellowsfish or crested bellowfish, ''Notopogon lilliei'', is a species of

fish Fish are aquatic, craniate, gill-bearing animals that lack limbs with digits. Included in this definition are the living hagfish, lampreys, and cartilaginous and bony fish as well as various extinct related groups. Approximately 95% of li ...

from the family

Macroramphosidae Macroramphosidae, the snipefishes and bellowsfishes is a family of oviparous, marine fish which form part of the superfamily Centriscoidea, which is one of the two superfamilies in the suborder Aulostomoidei of the order Syngnathiformes, which in ...

. It is a

demersal The demersal zone is the part of the sea or ocean (or deep lake) consisting of the part of the water column near to (and significantly affected by) the seabed and the benthos. The demersal zone is just above the benthic zone and forms a layer of ...

species which occurs over the

continental shelf A continental shelf is a portion of a continent that is submerged under an area of relatively shallow water, known as a shelf sea. Much of these shelves were exposed by drops in sea level during glacial periods. The shelf surrounding an island ...

at depths of . They grow to lengths of up to . This species has been found in the south western Pacific off the coasts of New Zealand and

Victoria Victoria most commonly refers to: * Victoria (Australia), a state of the Commonwealth of Australia * Victoria, British Columbia, provincial capital of British Columbia, Canada * Victoria (mythology), Roman goddess of Victory * Victoria, Seychelle ...

and

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

in south-eastern Australia; it has also been reported from the western Indian Ocean near

KwaZulu Natal KwaZulu-Natal (, also referred to as KZN and known as "the garden province") is a province of South Africa that was created in 1994 when the Zulu bantustan of KwaZulu ("Place of the Zulu" in Zulu) and Natal Province were merged. It is locat ...

and in the south eastern Atlantic near the islands of

Tristan da Cunha Tristan da Cunha (), colloquially Tristan, is a remote group of volcanic islands in the South Atlantic Ocean. It is the most remote inhabited archipelago in the world, lying approximately from Cape Town in South Africa, from Saint Helena ...

and

Gough Island upright=1.3, Map of Gough island Gough Island ( ), also known historically as Gonçalo Álvares, is a rugged volcanic island in the South Atlantic Ocean. It is a dependency of Tristan da Cunha and part of the British overseas territory of Sain ...

. The species was named for biologist D. G. Lillie.

References

* Tony Ayling & Geoffrey Cox, ''Collins Guide to the Sea Fishes of New Zealand'', (William Collins Publishers Ltd, Auckland, New Zealand 1982) Notopogon Fish described in 1914 {{Syngnathiformes-stub