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Lizardfish


Yowie

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At last a reply from the museum

Dear Donna,

Thank you for your enquiry.

Our ichthyologist, Mark McGrouther, has viewed your images and said, though he admitted he couldn't be 100% positive from these photographs alone, that it was most likely a Largescale Saury, Saurida undosquamis.

Please see the following links for more information:

Australian Museum: Largescale Saury
Atlas of Living Australia: Saurida undosquamis

Please let us know if we can be of any further assistance.

Kind regards,

Lachlan Manning

Interpretive Officer

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Your right there there NaCIH20K9 I was looking at the Saury especially the Large Scale and called it a Lizardfish ...OOPPs.

That certainly looks the goods, but I thought they had white spots on their back.

There's about 26 Saury (saurida) and Lizardfish (Synodus) in OZ and not much written about them.

Hence the sigh, though it makes a bit of fun trying to identify the critter. :)

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I would certainly go Lizardfish, but what one ??????

Any more photos there Yowie, especially of its back.

Sigh.

No photos of it's back, but the colour you see on the top of it's side is the same uniform colour over the back. A mid brown colour with no stripes or spots on the back.

Many, many small sharp and pointy teeth, not in a single row but in multiple rows, similar to a mass of teeth along the jaw line.

When I was looking at the head from the top, it was not rounded but a little bit pointy.

With the phone photo, I slightly enlarged a picture of it's head.

The scales were of a reasonable size, about 8mm but not quite 1cm across (going from memory)

Looking at the full body photo, the upper back is mid brown, there is an almost white stripe along the middle of it's body, a brown/yellow stripe, a paler stripe, and a yellow stripe under that, with the lower body being white.

post-13153-0-89002700-1452733414_thumb.jpg

post-13153-0-72250100-1452733952_thumb.jpg

Edited by yowie
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Thanks Yowie for that. Just one more favour could you put a pic up in the highest resolution of its tail.

Largescale Saury have small black spots along the top of the tail.

On another note,

Baz "Berleyguts"

Looks like a Grinner. By the shape of the snout and the colouring, I'd lean towards a Large-Scaled Grinner (saurida undosquamis) rather than a Painted Grinner ((trachinocephalus myops). Reference: Grant's Guide To Fishes,

Grants seem to call most Grinners.

Where Grinners are "Trachinocephalus" Lizardfish are "Synodus" and Saurys are "Saurida" Different families.

Now, Mr Grant knows a crap load more about fish than me so I'm certainly not knocking him just pointing this out. Thats why a scientific name in the end is the best. :)

Lets hope we nail this sucker for Yowie.

Cheers Gordon.

Edited by Blackfish
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This is what I meant about spots on the leading edge of the tail.

If we could see this, then makes a positives ID to a Largescale Sauri.

Sauri_zpsqjir2snv.jpg

Photo Courtesy of Australian National Fish Collection.

Otherwise I'm still scratching my head.

mmmmmmmmm, I better go fishing. Oh wait.

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This is what I meant about spots on the leading edge of the tail.

If we could see this, then makes a positives ID to a Largescale Sauri.

Sauri_zpsqjir2snv.jpg

Photo Courtesy of Australian National Fish Collection.

Otherwise I'm still scratching my head.

mmmmmmmmm, I better go fishing. Oh wait.

My fish is very similar to the photo, however, mine had a brown/yellow stripe, a pale stripe and a yellow stripe, and the bottom jaw is not underslung like the photo. Apart from that, the photo is fairly close to mine.

F*** sakes, never caught one before. I still have the fillets scaled, salted and now frozen.

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F*** sakes, never caught one before. I still have the fillets scaled, salted and now frozen.

Yowie I recon you then would have the record. ....... what ever that that fish is then.

NaCIH20K9, see the dots on the tail, that's I mean and I recon Swainstons book is the Bees Knees.

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Yea I see the dots. And can also see light and dark seperation in the photo but that may be my imagination. :)

Swainstons is good but I don't think it can be used in isolation.

I've been caught out before with it.

Unfortunately there is very little documentation on other members of this family. From my research ( and I'm not as good as you mate) the teeth and length push the edge on large scale.

But wouldn't be the first time I was wrong.

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From swainstons fishes of Australia. I'm always cautious of illustrations though.

9a7c644a2bd6e8b38d6b5695ee8cbb9d.jpg

That is looking closer.

I tried to expand the phone photos, a little bit distorted but there looks like a couple of dark spots on the top of the tail.

I googled photos of a Large Scale Saury, and the photos I saw showed the fish with white spots on it's back. Mine did not have those white spots, the back was a uniform mid-brown colour.

Edited by yowie
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I looked at the photos of the Large Scaled Saury. Mine has the rough looking head and big mouth, but, it did not have any white spots on it's back, it was a uniform mid brown colour.

It was a female, with 2 large roe, and weighed 915 grams. The roe were very fat, but a very light white colour, A lot of roe I have seen in other fish are yellow or yellow/orange colour.

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Yowie,

I'm 85% its the largescale Saury. its the most obvious option taking "location", scale size, length and the teeth. I think the slight difference in coloration is minor.

I'm 10% its a Wanieso lizardfish, Saurida ​wanieso , the look is very similar, and the body colour seems to better match your description BUT the tail is wrong, the scale size not quite right, AND the location is much more unlikely, all reports I can find are from north west Australia with only one report on the NSW / VIC border (I suspect this may be an error).

http://www.fishbase.se/summary/10411

http://bie.ala.org.au/species/Saurida+wanieso#

I'm 5% it could be something else :)

as for offering up an "orb" No thanks, there just isn't enough sound documentation on the species available to make that sort of commitment.

That's all I've got. and just my opinions.

Steve

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Thanks Steve.

I viewed a number of different photos of the Large Scaled Saury, and they all had white spots on their backs, also the backs were slightly different colours to mine.

Mine had a mid brown back, no spots, and looks rather similar to the photo of the Saurida Wanieso.

Wonder if the Museum could give a positive I.D.

Dave.

p.s. I take it you value your "jatz crackers" more than making a slightly incorrect I.D. :074:

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