The beachsalmon is a species

Species

In biology, a species is one of the basic units of biological classification and a taxonomic rank. A species is often defined as a group of organisms capable of interbreeding and producing fertile offspring. While in many cases this definition is adequate, more precise or differing measures are...

 of perciform

Perciformes

The Perciformes, also called the Percomorphi or Acanthopteri, is one of the largest orders of vertebrates, containing about 40% of all bony fish. Perciformes means perch-like. They belong to the class of ray-finned fish and comprise over 7,000 species found in almost all aquatic environments...

, primarily coast

Coast

A coastline or seashore is the area where land meets the sea or ocean. A precise line that can be called a coastline cannot be determined due to the dynamic nature of tides. The term "coastal zone" can be used instead, which is a spatial zone where interaction of the sea and land processes occurs...

al marine

Sea

A sea generally refers to a large body of salt water, but the term is used in other contexts as well. Most commonly, it means a large expanse of saline water connected with an ocean, and is commonly used as a synonym for ocean...

 or brackish

Brackish water

Brackish water is water that has more salinity than fresh water, but not as much as seawater. It may result from mixing of seawater with fresh water, as in estuaries, or it may occur in brackish fossil aquifers. The word comes from the Middle Dutch root "brak," meaning "salty"...

 fish

Fish

Fish are a paraphyletic group of organisms that consist of all gill-bearing aquatic vertebrate animals that lack limbs with digits. Included in this definition are the living hagfish, lampreys, and cartilaginous and bony fish, as well as various extinct related groups...

 and the sole representative of its family

Family (biology)

In biological classification, family is* a taxonomic rank. Other well-known ranks are life, domain, kingdom, phylum, class, order, genus, and species, with family fitting between order and genus. As for the other well-known ranks, there is the option of an immediately lower rank, indicated by the...

, Leptobramidae. Found in tropical

Tropics

The tropics is a region of the Earth surrounding the Equator. It is limited in latitude by the Tropic of Cancer in the northern hemisphere at approximately  N and the Tropic of Capricorn in the southern hemisphere at  S; these latitudes correspond to the axial tilt of the Earth...

 coastal waters of the Western Pacific off southern New Guinea

New Guinea

New Guinea is the world's second largest island, after Greenland, covering a land area of 786,000 km2. Located in the southwest Pacific Ocean, it lies geographically to the east of the Malay Archipelago, with which it is sometimes included as part of a greater Indo-Australian Archipelago...

, Queensland

Queensland

Queensland is a state of Australia, occupying the north-eastern section of the mainland continent. It is bordered by the Northern Territory, South Australia and New South Wales to the west, south-west and south respectively. To the east, Queensland is bordered by the Coral Sea and Pacific Ocean...

, and Western Australia

Western Australia

Western Australia is a state of Australia, occupying the entire western third of the Australian continent. It is bounded by the Indian Ocean to the north and west, the Great Australian Bight and Indian Ocean to the south, the Northern Territory to the north-east and South Australia to the south-east...

. the beachsalmon is a popular sport fish in Australia

Australia

Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...

 where it is sometimes called flat salmon, silver salmon, slender bream, or skippy (a name also applied to several species of trevally

Carangidae

Carangidae is a family of fish which includes the jacks, pompanos, jack mackerels, and scads.They are marine fish found in the Atlantic, Indian and Pacific Oceans...

).

Historically, Leptobrama was placed in the sweeper

Sweeper

Sweepers are small, tropical marine perciform fish of the family Pempheridae. Found in the western Atlantic Ocean and Indo-Pacific region, the family contains approximately 26 species in two genera. One species is the target of subsistence fisheries in Japan, where the fish is much enjoyed for...

 family Pempheridae: while the two are similar, they in fact have no more characteristics in common than "any other two arbitrarily chosen acanthopterygian

Acanthopterygii

Acanthopterygii is a superorder of bony fishes in the class Actinopterygii. Members of this superorder are also known as the ray-finned fishes for the characteristic sharp, bony rays in their fins; however this name is also often given to the class Actinopterygii as a whole.Orders:* Order...

 forms might be expected to have," therefore justifying the placement of Leptobrama in its own family. The genus name Leptobrama may be translated from the Greek

Greek language

Greek is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages. Native to the southern Balkans, it has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning 34 centuries of written records. Its writing system has been the Greek alphabet for the majority of its history;...

 leptos, meaning "thin" and the Old French

Old French

Old French was the Romance dialect continuum spoken in territories that span roughly the northern half of modern France and parts of modern Belgium and Switzerland from the 9th century to the 14th century...

 bresme, meaning "breme" or "freshwater fish

Freshwater fish

Freshwater fish are fish that spend some or all of their lives in freshwater, such as rivers and lakes, with a salinity of less than 0.05%. These environments differ from marine conditions in many ways, the most obvious being the difference in levels of salinity...

," an allusion to its tendency to enter the mouths of river

River

A river is a natural watercourse, usually freshwater, flowing towards an ocean, a lake, a sea, or another river. In a few cases, a river simply flows into the ground or dries up completely before reaching another body of water. Small rivers may also be called by several other names, including...

s and estuaries

Estuary

An estuary is a partly enclosed coastal body of water with one or more rivers or streams flowing into it, and with a free connection to the open sea....

.

Description

Beachsalmon are characterized by a deep, laterally compressed and fusiform

Fusiform

Fusiform means having a spindle-like shape that is wide in the middle and tapers at both ends.* Aneurysms can be classified as saccular or fusiform...

 body. The dorsal fin

Dorsal fin

A dorsal fin is a fin located on the backs of various unrelated marine and freshwater vertebrates, including most fishes, marine mammals , and the ichthyosaurs...

 is also reduced and begins behind the middle of the body; it contains four spines and 16-18 soft rays. The anal fin originates at about the middle of the body and contains three spines and 26-30 soft rays. The maxilla

Maxilla

The maxilla is a fusion of two bones along the palatal fissure that form the upper jaw. This is similar to the mandible , which is also a fusion of two halves at the mental symphysis. Sometimes The maxilla (plural: maxillae) is a fusion of two bones along the palatal fissure that form the upper...

e extend well beyond the small eyes; the preorbital is serrate, and the adipose lid is present.

The lateral line

Lateral line

The lateral line is a sense organ in aquatic organisms , used to detect movement and vibration in the surrounding water. Lateral lines are usually visible as faint lines running lengthwise down each side, from the vicinity of the gill covers to the base of the tail...

 is described as having long, narrow tubes and from 75-77 scales. There are approximately 10 short gill raker

Gill raker

Gill rakers in fish are bony or cartilaginous processes that project from the branchial arch and are involved with filter feeding tiny prey. They are not to be confused with the gill filaments that compose the bony part of the gill. Rakers are usually present in two rows, projecting from both the...

s. The maximum recorded length for the species is 37.5 cm (standard length).