The sleepy cod (''Oxyeleotris lineolata'') is a medium-sized fish in the family

Butidae Butidae is a family of sleeper gobies in the order Gobiiformes. The family was formerly classified as a subfamily of the Eleotridae but the 5th Edition of ''Fishes of the World'' classifies it as a family in its own right. Molecular phylogenetic ...

, native to

tropical The tropics are the regions of Earth surrounding the equator, where the sun may shine directly overhead. This contrasts with the temperate or polar regions of Earth, where the Sun can never be directly overhead. This is because of Earth's ax ...

fresh waters of northern

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country comprising mainland Australia, the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania and list of islands of Australia, numerous smaller isl ...

and questionably from

New Guinea New Guinea (; Hiri Motu: ''Niu Gini''; , fossilized , also known as Papua or historically ) is the List of islands by area, world's second-largest island, with an area of . Located in Melanesia in the southwestern Pacific Ocean, the island is ...

. It is a member of the order

Perciformes Perciformes (), also called the Acanthopteri, is an order or superorder of ray-finned fish in the clade Percomorpha. ''Perciformes'' means " perch-like". Among the well-known members of this group are perches and darters ( Percidae), and als ...

, thus is unrelated to the true cods in the order

Gadiformes Gadiformes , also called the Anacanthini, are an order of ray-finned fish that include the cod, hakes, pollock, haddock, burbot, rocklings and moras, many of which are food fish of major commercial value. They are mostly marine fish found thr ...

. Neither are they closely related to the Australian freshwater cods such as the

Murray cod The Murray cod (''Maccullochella peelii'') is a large Australian predatory freshwater fish of the genus '' Maccullochella'' in the family Percichthyidae.Dianne J. Bray & Vanessa J. Thompson (2011Murray Cod, Maccullochella peelii Fishes of Au ...

of the genus '' Maccullochella''. They are one of the most favoured freshwater fish in Australia for eating, having white, flaky flesh, low fat content, and a mild flavour.

Morphology and biology

The sleepy cod can reach a length of , though most do not exceed . Fish up to have been caught by anglers. They are dark brown along the back and paler on the sides, with fuzzy dark lines running along scale rows. Juveniles have a white or cream patch running along the back and top of the head, with brown sides and a white belly. Females spawn in the

benthic zone The benthic zone is the ecological region at the lowest level of a body of water such as an ocean, lake, or stream, including the sediment surface and some sub-surface layers. The name comes from the Ancient Greek word (), meaning "the depths". ...

from October to February. Males guard nests of up to 70,000 eggs until larvae hatch, usually after 5–7 days. They are usually found in quiet or slow-flowing water in freshwater rivers, creeks, and billabongs throughout northern Australia.

References

External links

Native Fish Australia - Sleepy Cod page

Photograph
sleepy cod Freshwater fish of Australia sleepy cod {{Gobiiformes-stub