Flowing water is the key to where small fishes live in steep coastal streams draining into the Great Barrier Reef lagoon, according to TropWATER researcher James Donaldson. His honours study based at the Australian National University (ANU) was supervised by Dr Chris Fulton (ANU) and TropWATER and CSIRO Post-doctoral Fellow Dr Brendan Ebner, and has recently been published in the journal Freshwater Biology. The steep coastal streams near Cape Tribulation receive high annual rainfall and are home to some of the most colourful and rare freshwater fish species in the country. Curiously, these fish, known as gobies, have two fins on the underside of their body which are fused together forming a suction cup to help them cling to rocks in high flow. One of the goby species was recorded living in water moving at almost 2 metres per second.
From TropWATER at JCU
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