Endangered
Eastern freshwater cod
Maccullochella ikei
The eastern freshwater cod, also known as the eastern cod or Clarence River cod, is a large predatory freshwater fish of the genus Maccullochella and the family Percichthyidae, that occur in the coastal Clarence River system of north-eastern New South Wales.
Appearance
The spiny dorsal fin is moderate in height and is partially separated by a notch from the high, rounded soft dorsal fin. Soft dorsal, anal, and caudal (tail) fins are all large and rounded, and are dusky grey or black with distinct white edges. The leading greyish-white coloured rays on the pelvic fins split into two trailing filaments.
Eastern freshwater cod were historically recorded reaching sizes well over 1 metre in length and up to 48 kg in weight, but today are commonly less than 60 cm in length and less than 5 kg in weight.
Range and habitat
Eastern freshwater cod are native to the Clarence River system in northern New South Wales, Australia. The Clarence River system is an extensive East Coast drainage with many tributaries of differing size. By Australian standards, the Clarence River and its major tributaries the Mann and Nymboida Rivers are extremely large rivers with extremely large flow volumes.
Pins are Wikidata “endemic to” fields. Orange dots, when present, are GBIF occurrence tiles — survey bias included.
Breeding
Eastern freshwater cod spawn in early spring when water temperatures exceed 16 °C, using rock structures as sites for the adhesive eggs. Most other aspects of their spawning, among them the guarding of eggs and newly hatched larvae by the male fish, are similar to Murray cod.
The breeding season is 8–10 weeks long. Males clean and protect nesting sites until females enter and a complex spawning ritual is performed.
In crisis
The eastern freshwater cod, also known as the eastern cod or Clarence River cod, is a large predatory freshwater fish of the genus Maccullochella and the family Percichthyidae, that occur in the coastal Clarence River system of north-eastern New South Wales. A long-lived, slow-growing species, eastern freshwater cod are threatened by poaching, habitat degradation, catastrophic natural events such as bushfires, and inbreeding from low genetic diversity. Following heavy declines in numbers and distribution, the eastern freshwater cod is currently classified as endangered by the IUCN.
As a very slow-growing top predator with low fecundity, eastern freshwater cod are even more vulnerable to overfishing than Murray cod. The above factors, that have in the past led to the extinction of the Richmond River cod and the Brisbane River cod and the endangerment of the Mary River cod, have reduced the eastern freshwater cod from an abundant fish found in all parts of the Clarence River system to an endangered fish absent from most parts of it.
Eastern freshwater cod is Endangered on this catalog because that is the IUCN category stored on Wikidata. Confirm the official criteria and any later count on iucnredlist.org.
Sources
Written for this catalog from the English Wikipedia article on Eastern freshwater cod, Wikidata item Q5330595. Family and order context is original field-guide writing about the group, not a copied assessment of this one species. Wikipedia text is CC BY-SA. Not an IUCN assessment. Counts, when quoted, can change — confirm them on the recovery programme and on iucnredlist.org.
