RARE FISH FOUND

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIX, Issue 21305, 5 October 1932, Page 8

RARE FISH FOUND

POWER OF BURROWING NATIVE MUDFISH SPECIMEN An unusual type of fish was caught at> Mangamutu, near Pahiatua, recently by a railway official, Mr. C. Bennetto, and was forwarded to the Marine Department: by Mr. J. Hutton, secretary of tfo Pahiatua Anglers' Club. The chief inspector of fisheries has replied that although eel-like, the fish is not an eel, but is a specimen of the N,ew Zealand j "mudfish" (Neochanna apoda). i "It is a fish that is, very rarely seen nowadays," states the inspector, "but specimens previously have been brought to my notice from two North Island localities. One was sent by the Stratford Acclimatisation Society's secretary. Tbn was found, with several others, under a log in a dried swamp in January, 1931. A few months before that Captain Hays* brought back three specimen?, from * swamp near Fox ton, where they werft found embedded in half-dry niud. "This species is an inhabitant of swamp pools, and is of peculiar mtfreiit in that it has the power of burrowing into the mud when the pool dries up and of maintaining life under these conditions. Apparently, like the Australian mudfish, which, however, belongs to an entirely different order of fish, it has the power of breathing without water, and it can exist for some time with little ,or no oxygen,"