TWO SPECIES

Evening Post, Volume CVI, Issue 57, 8 March 1928, Page 16

TWO SPECIES

FRESH-WATER EELS The leading scientific authority on freshwater eels, Professor J. Schmidt, of Copenhagen, has written a report on the freshwater eels of New Zealand. "After having concluded my investigations into the classification and migrations of the Atlantic species of eel, researches which have occupied many years, I have turned my attention to the eels of the Indo-Pacific region," he says. "I set out, in 1926, on a voyage to the Southern Pacific, visiting Australia, New;. Zealand, and Tahiti, and obtaining on the way large quantities of eels, sufficient for a statistical investigation on the lines I had previously adopted in the case of eels of Europe, America, and Japan. . . The fresh-water eels are probably more abundant in "New Zealand than anywhere else in the Southern Hemisphere. For the Maori, they were of the utmost economical importance, as is evident, for instance, from the highly-developed technique in methods and implements for the capture of these fish possessed by. the Natives prior to the arrival of Europeans. As regards the scientific investigation of the New Zealand eels, their classification and distribution for instance, it was plain that much was still to be desired; as matters stood, it might seem doubtful how many of the different 'species' of eel recorded from New Zealand could be maintained as such in the light of modern requirements as to distinction of species. "By means of statistical and other investigation of nearly 1500 eels from New Zealand, I have now definitely ascertained that there are two valid species of the genus Anquilla, both highly variable, though hardly more so than the European oel. They should rightly be called Anquilla australis Rich. and Anquilla aucklandi Rich. Taking the most conspicuous point of difference between them, viz., the length of the dorsal fin, I suggest that they should, be called in English the short-finned eel (A. australis), and the long-finned eel (A. aucklandi)." Professor Schmidt describes the general distribution of the two species in New Zealand,' and acknowledges the assistance given to him in his investigations by Mr. A. E. Hefford, Chief Inspector of Fisheries; Mr. T. W. Downes, Wanganui, and others.