The Australian barracuda, arrow barracuda, Australian sea pike, sea pike, snook, or shortfin barracuda, ''Sphyraena novaehollandiae'', is a

barracuda A barracuda is a large, predatory, ray-finned, saltwater fish of the genus ''Sphyraena'', the only genus in the family Sphyraenidae, which was named by Constantine Samuel Rafinesque in 1815. It is found in tropical and subtropical oceans worldw ...

of the genus '' Sphyraena'' which occurs in the south-western Pacific Ocean.

Description

The Australian barracuda is greenish on the back, silvery on flanks which fades to white on the belly with a greenish-yellow tail. It has the typical

fusiform Fusiform (from Latin ''fusus'' ‘spindle’) means having a spindle (textiles), spindle-like shape that is wide in the middle and tapers at both ends. It is similar to the lemon (geometry), lemon-shape, but often implies a focal broadening of a ...

shape of a barracuda, but it is slimmer than most other species of '' Sphyraena'' with a conical snout and a protruding lower jaw, the jaws are lined with fang like teeth and the upper jaw is non-protracting. The origin of the dorsal fin is well behind the end of the pectoral fins. It reaches a maximum length of 1.1m and a weight of 5 kg.

Distribution

The Australian barracuda is distributed along the south coast of Australia and along the east coast to

Victoria Victoria most commonly refers to: * Queen Victoria (1819–1901), Queen of the United Kingdom and Empress of India * Victoria (state), a state of Australia * Victoria, British Columbia, Canada, a provincial capital * Victoria, Seychelles, the capi ...

and

Tasmania Tasmania (; palawa kani: ''Lutruwita'') is an island States and territories of Australia, state of Australia. It is located to the south of the Mainland Australia, Australian mainland, and is separated from it by the Bass Strait. The sta ...

. It has also been recorded from northern

New Zealand New Zealand () is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and List of islands of New Zealand, over 600 smaller islands. It is the List of isla ...

and

Kiribati Kiribati, officially the Republic of Kiribati, is an island country in the Micronesia subregion of Oceania in the central Pacific Ocean. Its permanent population is over 119,000 as of the 2020 census, and more than half live on Tarawa. The st ...

with doubtful records from South Africa, the Maldives and Japan but these may be the result of misidentification, confusion with related species masking the true distribution.

Ecology and biology

The Australian barracuda prefers cooler inshore waters, preferring patches of seagrass ''

Zostera ''Zostera'' is a small genus of widely distributed seagrasses, commonly called marine eelgrass, or simply seagrass or eelgrass. The genus ''Zostera'' contains 15 species. Ecology '' Zostera marina'' is found on sandy substrates or in estuarie ...

'' or '' Heterozostera'' or seaweed or sandy areas close to weed patches or reefs. It is a pelagic species, which congregates in large shoals and is highly migratory. Their food is made up of smaller fish,

cephalopod A cephalopod is any member of the molluscan Taxonomic rank, class Cephalopoda (Greek language, Greek plural , ; "head-feet") such as a squid, octopus, cuttlefish, or nautilus. These exclusively marine animals are characterized by bilateral symm ...

crustacean Crustaceans (from Latin meaning: "those with shells" or "crusted ones") are invertebrate animals that constitute one group of arthropods that are traditionally a part of the subphylum Crustacea (), a large, diverse group of mainly aquatic arthrop ...

s and bloodworms, it is referred to as an ambush feeder but is also known to actively pursue prey. It appears the Australian barracuda is an opportunistic predator, able to exploit almost any potential prey species, and the variety of prey taken suggests that it hunts at all levels of the water column, taking demersal species such as '' Haletta semifasciata'' and ''

Metapenaeopsis ''Metapenaeopsis'', the velvet shrimps, is a prawn genus in the family Penaeidae. It contains the following species: * ''Metapenaeopsis acclivis'' (Rathbun, 1902) * ''Metapenaeopsis aegyptia'' Galil & Golani, 1990 * ''Metapenaeopsis andamanensis ...

'' prawns and pelagic species such as pilchards, southern sea garfish and squid. The Australian barracuda has a short spawning season which runs from November to January and February in South Australia. Most females reproduce once they have attained a length of 42 cm which length is normally reached after around 2 years old. Spawning is probably done in a series of batches. During spawning the fish are absent from their normal habitats and this is suggestive that they migrate offshore to spawn in deeper water. The females lay and average total of 375,000 eggs in a season, their fecundity increasing with their size. This species can live for up to 20 years.

Fisheries

The Australian barracuda is subject to a small commercial fishery in

South Australia South Australia (commonly abbreviated as SA) is a States and territories of Australia, state in the southern central part of Australia. With a total land area of , it is the fourth-largest of Australia's states and territories by area, which in ...

. It is a popular fish with recreational anglers in Australia.

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q3769049 Sphyraenidae Fish described in 1860 Taxa named by Albert Günther