The red-finned blue-eye (''Scaturiginichthys vermeilipinnis'') is a tiny, critically endangered 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 the only species in its genus. The species was first recorded in 1990. It 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 ...

central Queensland Central Queensland is an ambiguous geographical division of Queensland ( a state in Australia) that centres on the eastern coast, around the Tropic of Capricorn. Its major regional centre is Rockhampton. The region extends from the Capricorn Coas ...

in Australia, where it is restricted to springs in Bush Heritage's

Edgbaston Reserve Edgbaston Reserve, formerly Edgbaston Station, is a nature reserve in central Queensland, Australia, north-east of Longreach. It lies in the upper catchment of Pelican Creek, which flows into the Thomson River and, ultimately, into Lake Eyre. ...

Description

The fish reaches up to in length, and only males have red fins.

Habitat and distribution

The fish only live in shallow, slightly salty water in Edgbaston Reserve, which is owned by

Bush Heritage Australia Bush Heritage Australia is a non-profit organisation with headquarters in Melbourne, Australia, that operates throughout Australia. It was previously known as the Australian Bush Heritage Fund, which is still its legal name. It's vision is: Heal ...

. The water in the springs can vary from near freezing in the winter to in the summer.Bridie Smith
Hope springs eternal for besieged blue-eye,'
at

Sydney Morning Herald ''The Sydney Morning Herald'' (''SMH'') is a daily compact newspaper published in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia, and owned by Nine. Founded in 1831 as the ''Sydney Herald'', the ''Herald'' is the oldest continuously published newspaper i ...

, June 9, 2012.

Conservation status

It is listed as '' Critically Endangered'' on the

IUCN Red List The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List of Threatened Species, also known as the IUCN Red List or Red Data Book, founded in 1964, is the world's most comprehensive inventory of the global conservation status of biol ...

, and as ''Endangered'' under

Queensland ) , nickname = Sunshine State , image_map = Queensland in Australia.svg , map_caption = Location of Queensland in Australia , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name = Australia , established_title = Before federation , established_ ...

Nature Conservation Act 1992 The ''Nature Conservation Act 1992'' is an act of the Parliament of Queensland, Australia, that, together with subordinate legislation, provides for the legislative protection of Queensland's threatened biota. As originally published, it prov ...

. In September 2012, the species was placed on the

International Union for Conservation of Nature 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 ...

list of 100 most endangered species on the planet. It was originally found in seven springs in its small range in the Edgbaston Reserve, but by 2012 only survived in three of these, although another three translocated populations existed in the reserve. By 2021 were only found in one spring. They are at risk from extinction due to competition and predation by the flourishing introduced

eastern mosquitofish The eastern mosquitofish (''Gambusia holbrooki'') is a species of freshwater fish, closely related to the western mosquitofish, ''Gambusia affinis''. It is a member of the family Poeciliidae of order Cyprinodontiformes. The eastern mosquitofish ...

(''Gambusia holbrooki''), water extraction and habitat loss. Gambusia is a huge threat as an

invasive species An invasive species otherwise known as an alien is an introduced organism that becomes overpopulated and harms its new environment. Although most introduced species are neutral or beneficial with respect to other species, invasive species ad ...

, which is out-competing many species in Australia. An intensive conservation programme has been developed to save the species. The

Edgbaston goby ''Chlamydogobius squamigenus'', the Edgbaston goby, is a critically endangered species of goby endemic to the Edgbaston Reserve in Central Queensland, Australia where it occurs in small pools with clay bottoms and emergent tussock grasses. This ...

(''Chlamydogobius squamigenus''), 11 snail species, a small

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 ...

, a

flatworm The flatworms, flat worms, Platyhelminthes, or platyhelminths (from the Greek πλατύ, ''platy'', meaning "flat" and ἕλμινς (root: ἑλμινθ-), ''helminth-'', meaning "worm") are a phylum of relatively simple bilaterian, unsegment ...

, a spider and a

dragonfly A dragonfly is a flying insect belonging to the infraorder Anisoptera below the order Odonata. About 3,000 extant species of true dragonfly are known. Most are tropical, with fewer species in temperate regions. Loss of wetland habitat threate ...

are restricted to springs in the same reserve and also threatened.Bush Heritage (27 May 2016).
Edgbaston.
' Retrieved 18 February 2017. In February 2021, captive-bred fish were released into the wild spring, boosting the population from about 200 to approximately 3,000.

Ecological role

It has been hypothetically posed that the red-finned blue-eye eats the seeds of an endangered species of the ''

eriocaulon ''Eriocaulon'' is a genus of about 400 species commonly known as pipeworts, of monocotyledonous flowering plants in the family Eriocaulaceae. The genus is widely distributed, with the centers of diversity for the group occurring in tropical regio ...

'' (pipewort), which is part of the plant's life cycle, and up to 11 species of endemic snail may potentially rely on this plant as a food source. Whether the fish actually acts in this way to help maintain the spring ecosystem is unknown but it is not worth the risk to lose the species in case it plays such an ecologically important role in the spring ecosystem.

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q2119798 Scaturiginichthys Pseudomugilinae Freshwater fish of Queensland Critically endangered fauna of Australia Nature Conservation Act endangered biota Central Queensland Monotypic fish genera

red-finned blue-eye The red-finned blue-eye (''Scaturiginichthys vermeilipinnis'') is a tiny, critically endangered species of fish in the family Pseudomugilidae. It is the only species in its genus. The species was first recorded in 1990. It is endemic to centr ...

Taxonomy articles created by Polbot