The spotted blue-eye (''Pseudomugil gertrudae'') 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 ...

in the family

Pseudomugilidae The Pseudomugilidae, the blue-eyes, are a subfamily of atheriniform fish in the rainbowfish family Melanotaeniidae. They inhabit fresh and brackish water in Australia, New Guinea and nearby smaller islands. Blue-eyes are small fish, typically ...

. It is native to

Papua New Guinea Papua New Guinea (abbreviated PNG; , ; tpi, Papua Niugini; ho, Papua Niu Gini), officially the Independent State of Papua New Guinea ( tpi, Independen Stet bilong Papua Niugini; ho, Independen Stet bilong Papua Niu Gini), is a country i ...

and northern Australia. It adapts readily to captivity and can be kept in a small freshwater aquarium.

Taxonomy

Max Carl Wilhelm Weber Max Carl Wilhelm Weber van Bosse or Max Wilhelm Carl Weber (5 December 1852, in Bonn – 7 February 1937, in Eerbeek) was a German-Dutch zoologist and biogeographer. Weber studied at the University of Bonn, then at the Humboldt University in Be ...

described ''Pseudomugil gertrudae'' in 1911 from specimens collected from

Trangan Trangan is an island in the Aru Islands in the Arafura Sea. It is situated in the Maluku Province of Indonesia. Its area is 2149 km². The other main islands in the archipelago are Tanahbesar (also called Wokam), Kola, Kobroor, Koba, and Mai ...

Island in the

Aru Islands The Aru Islands Regency ( id, Kabupaten Kepulauan Aru) is a group of about 95 low-lying islands in the Maluku Islands of eastern Indonesia. It also forms a regency of Maluku Province, with a land area of . At the 2011 Census the Regency had a po ...

, naming it in honour of Gertrude, the wife of Dr. Hugo Merton, who visited the islands in 1907–08. Common names include spotted blue-eye, delicate blue-eye, Gertrude's blue-eye, and northern blue-eye.

Description

The spotted blue-eye has an elongated body generally up to 2.5 cm (1 in), or rarely 3 cm (1.2 in) in length. The overall colour is transparent to pale silver-white, sometimes with tints of tan or yellow. The rear half of the body is marked with three horizontal black lines, breaking up into spots anteriorly. The fins are yellow with black markings. Body size, colour and shape vary across its range: fish from the Aru Islands are larger, those from the vicinity of Darwin have orange pectoral fins, while fish from Goanna Lagoon in

Arnhem Land Arnhem Land is a historical region of the Northern Territory of Australia, with the term still in use. It is located in the north-eastern corner of the territory and is around from the territory capital, Darwin. In 1623, Dutch East India Compan ...

have an orange body. Getrudae Rainbowfish

Distribution and habitat

The spotted blue-eye is found in rivers in southern New Guinea, the Aru Islands, and the

Northern Territory The Northern Territory (commonly abbreviated as NT; formally the Northern Territory of Australia) is an states and territories of Australia, Australian territory in the central and central northern regions of Australia. The Northern Territory ...

and

Cape York Peninsula Cape York Peninsula is a large peninsula located in Far North Queensland, Australia. It is the largest unspoiled wilderness in northern Australia.Mittermeier, R.E. et al. (2002). Wilderness: Earth’s last wild places. Mexico City: Agrupación ...

(Queensland) in Australia. Their habitat includes small slow-moving streams, often less than 60 cm (2 ft) deep, pools, and ''

Melaleuca ''Melaleuca'' () is a genus of nearly 300 species of plants in the myrtle family, Myrtaceae, commonly known as paperbarks, honey-myrtles or tea-trees (although the last name is also applied to species of '' Leptospermum''). They range in size ...

'' or ''

Pandanus ''Pandanus'' is a genus of monocots with some 750 accepted species. They are palm-like, dioecious trees and shrubs native to the Old World tropics and subtropics. The greatest number of species are found in Madagascar and Malaysia. Common names ...

'' swamps. They have been found in water of pH 3.68 to 9.4.

Feeding

Though its diet has been little-studied, algae and small invertebrates make up a large part of it.

Breeding

Though little is known of its reproductive behaviour in the wild, the spotted blue-eye breeds readily in captivity.

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q1509683 spotted blue-eye Freshwater fish of Papua New Guinea Freshwater fish of Australia Fauna of the Northern Territory Taxa named by Max Carl Wilhelm Weber spotted blue-eye