Yellowtail trumpeter
Encyclopedia
The Yellowtail trumpeter, Amniataba caudavittata, (also known as the Flagtailed terapon, Yellowtail grunter and Yellow-tailed perch) is a common 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 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
Ocean
An ocean is a major body of saline water, and a principal component of the hydrosphere. Approximately 71% of the Earth's surface is covered by ocean, a continuous body of water that is customarily divided into several principal oceans and smaller seas.More than half of this area is over 3,000...

 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...

 of the grunter family; Terapontidae
Terapontidae
Grunters or tigerperches are fishes in the family Terapontidae . They are found in shallow coastal waters in the Indian Ocean and western Pacific, where they live in saltwater, brackish and freshwater habitats...

. The Yellowtail trumpeter is endemic to 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...

 and Papua New Guinea
Papua New Guinea
Papua New Guinea , officially the Independent State of Papua New Guinea, is a country in Oceania, occupying the eastern half of the island of New Guinea and numerous offshore islands...

, ranging from Cape Leeuwin
Cape Leeuwin
Cape Leeuwin is the most south-westerly mainland point of the Australian Continent, in the state of Western Australia.A few small islands and rocks, the St Alouarn Islands, extend further to the south. The nearest settlement, north of the cape, is Augusta. South-east of Cape Leeuwin, the coast...

 in 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...

 along the north coast of Australia to Bowen
Bowen, Queensland
Bowen is a town on the eastern coast of Queensland, Australia. At the 2006 census, Bowen had a population of 7,484.-Geography:Bowen is located on the north-east coast of Australia, at exactly twenty degrees south of the equator. In fact, the twentieth parallel crosses the main street...

, 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 north along the coast of southern Papua New Guinea. The species is distinguishable by its colouring patterns, as well as anatomical features such as spine and gill counts.

The species commonly inhabits estuaries during the warmer months of the year, moving offshore in winter to avoid the influx of fresh water from swollen 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. The species breeds in the upper reaches of estuaries, with an average of 310,000 eggs produced per individual in a season. The Yellowtail trumpeter is a benthic omnivore
Omnivore
Omnivores are species that eat both plants and animals as their primary food source...

, preying on algae
Algae
Algae are a large and diverse group of simple, typically autotrophic organisms, ranging from unicellular to multicellular forms, such as the giant kelps that grow to 65 meters in length. They are photosynthetic like plants, and "simple" because their tissues are not organized into the many...

, crustacean
Crustacean
Crustaceans form a very large group of arthropods, usually treated as a subphylum, which includes such familiar animals as crabs, lobsters, crayfish, shrimp, krill and barnacles. The 50,000 described species range in size from Stygotantulus stocki at , to the Japanese spider crab with a leg span...

s, and polychaete
Polychaete
The Polychaeta or polychaetes are a class of annelid worms, generally marine. Each body segment has a pair of fleshy protrusions called parapodia that bear many bristles, called chaetae, which are made of chitin. Indeed, polychaetes are sometimes referred to as bristle worms. More than 10,000...

s predominantly and shows a change in diet with age.

The species is often taken by with handlines, seine
Seine
The Seine is a -long river and an important commercial waterway within the Paris Basin in the north of France. It rises at Saint-Seine near Dijon in northeastern France in the Langres plateau, flowing through Paris and into the English Channel at Le Havre . It is navigable by ocean-going vessels...

s, and other inshore fishing gear but is considered to be a relatively poor table fish. The Yellowtail trumpeter is of no relation to the true trumpeters of the family Latridae
Latridae
Trumpeters are a family of perciform fishes, Latridae. They are found in southern waters off Australia, New Zealand, and Chile, where they are fished commercially and for sport...

.

Taxonomy and naming

The Yellowtail trumpeter is one of three 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...

 in the genus
Genus
In biology, a genus is a low-level taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of living and fossil organisms, which is an example of definition by genus and differentia...

 Amniataba, which is one of fifteen genera in the grunter 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...

, Terapontidae
Terapontidae
Grunters or tigerperches are fishes in the family Terapontidae . They are found in shallow coastal waters in the Indian Ocean and western Pacific, where they live in saltwater, brackish and freshwater habitats...

. The grunters are Perciformes
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...

 in the suborder Percoidei
Percoidei
Percoidei is one of eighteen suborders of bony fish in the order Perciformes. Many commercially harvested fish species are contained in this suborder, including the snappers, jacks, whitings, groupers, bass, perches and porgies.-Divisions:...

.

The species was first described by Richardson in 1844 as Terapon caudavittatus, before he subsequently republished the species under the names Datnia caudavittata, Amphitherapon caudavittatus, and the currently accepted binomial name of Amniataba caudavittata. The reasons for all the synonyms are not clear; either Richardson didn't know he was redescribing the same species, or he changed his mind as to which genera the species belonged in. Castelnau
François Louis de la Porte, comte de Castelnau
François Louis Nompar de Caumont LaPorte, comte de Castelnau was a French naturalist, known also as François Laporte or Francis de Castelnau.-Life:Born in London, he studied natural history in Paris...

 redescribed it once again as Therapon bostockii in 1873. All names except Amniataba caudavittata are invalid under the ICZN
International Code of Zoological Nomenclature
The International Code of Zoological Nomenclature is a widely accepted convention in zoology that rules the formal scientific naming of organisms treated as animals...

 rules.

The species has a number of common name
Common name
A common name of a taxon or organism is a name in general use within a community; it is often contrasted with the scientific name for the same organism...

s, with the most commonly used name being Yellowtail trumpeter, even though the species has no relation to the 'true' trumpeters of the family Latridae
Latridae
Trumpeters are a family of perciform fishes, Latridae. They are found in southern waters off Australia, New Zealand, and Chile, where they are fished commercially and for sport...

. Other names include Yellowtail grunter, Yellow-tailed perch, and the name used by the FAO
Fão
Fão is a town in Esposende Municipality in Portugal....

: Flagtailed terapon.

Description

The Yellowtail trumpeter is a moderate-sized species, growing to a maximum size of 28 cm, but more often observed at around 15 cm. The body is quite deep in profile and is compressed laterally.
The upper jaw
Jaw
The jaw is any opposable articulated structure at the entrance of the mouth, typically used for grasping and manipulating food. The term jaws is also broadly applied to the whole of the structures constituting the vault of the mouth and serving to open and close it and is part of the body plan of...

 is slightly longer than the lower jaw. The first gill arch has 6 to 8 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 on the upper limb and 12 or 13 on the lower limb. 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...

 has 12 or 13 spines and 8 to 10 soft rays; the spinous part of the dorsal fin is curved, with the fifth spine being the longest, and the final spine the shortest. The anal fin has 3 spines and 8 or 9 soft rays, with the second anal-fin spine longer than the third, but shorter than the longest anal-fin rays. The pored scales in 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...

 number 46 to 54 with 7 to 9 rows of scales above the lateral line and 17 to 19 below it.

The color
Color
Color or colour is the visual perceptual property corresponding in humans to the categories called red, green, blue and others. Color derives from the spectrum of light interacting in the eye with the spectral sensitivities of the light receptors...

 of the upper portions of the body is grey, with only light pigment
Pigment
A pigment is a material that changes the color of reflected or transmitted light as the result of wavelength-selective absorption. This physical process differs from fluorescence, phosphorescence, and other forms of luminescence, in which a material emits light.Many materials selectively absorb...

ation on the lower part of the body. The upper half of the body has a number of dispersed spots somewhat smaller than the pupil
Pupil
The pupil is a hole located in the center of the iris of the eye that allows light to enter the retina. It appears black because most of the light entering the pupil is absorbed by the tissues inside the eye. In humans the pupil is round, but other species, such as some cats, have slit pupils. In...

, while some individuals have 5 or 6 incomplete vertical bars extending from the dorsal fin surface of the body, down to the level of the pectoral fins. The fins are generally yellow in colour, with a variety of dusting and blotching. The spinous dorsal fin has irregular spotting and a faint duskiness distally, but does not exhibit a distinct patch of dark pigmentation. The soft dorsal fin is dusky at the base while the spinous portion of anal fin is also slightly dusky. The caudal fin is also spotted basally, with a highly distinct, black blotch extending obliquely across each lobe.

Range and habitat

The Yellowtail trumpeter ranges along the north coast of 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...

 from Cape Leeuwin
Cape Leeuwin
Cape Leeuwin is the most south-westerly mainland point of the Australian Continent, in the state of Western Australia.A few small islands and rocks, the St Alouarn Islands, extend further to the south. The nearest settlement, north of the cape, is Augusta. South-east of Cape Leeuwin, the coast...

 in 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...

 eastwards to Bowen
Bowen, Queensland
Bowen is a town on the eastern coast of Queensland, Australia. At the 2006 census, Bowen had a population of 7,484.-Geography:Bowen is located on the north-east coast of Australia, at exactly twenty degrees south of the equator. In fact, the twentieth parallel crosses the main street...

 in 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...

, also extending north to southern Papua New Guinea
Papua New Guinea
Papua New Guinea , officially the Independent State of Papua New Guinea, is a country in Oceania, occupying the eastern half of the island of New Guinea and numerous offshore islands...

.

The species is known to tolerate a very wide range of salinites
Salinity
Salinity is the saltiness or dissolved salt content of a body of water. It is a general term used to describe the levels of different salts such as sodium chloride, magnesium and calcium sulfates, and bicarbonates...

, from fresh 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...

 waters to hypersaline waters found in some areas of Shark Bay
Shark Bay
Shark Bay is a World Heritage listed bay in Western Australia. The term may also refer to:* the locality of Shark Bay, now known as Denham* Shark Bay Marine Park* Shark Bay , a shark exhibit at Sea World, Gold Coast, Australia* Shire of Shark Bay...

 and everything in between. Yellowtail trumpeter often inhabit estuarine waters along the Western Australian coast, as well as sand
Sand
Sand is a naturally occurring granular material composed of finely divided rock and mineral particles.The composition of sand is highly variable, depending on the local rock sources and conditions, but the most common constituent of sand in inland continental settings and non-tropical coastal...

 and seagrass
Seagrass
Seagrasses are flowering plants from one of four plant families , all in the order Alismatales , which grow in marine, fully saline environments.-Ecology:...

 beds in inshore and offshore waters of the continental shelf
Continental shelf
The continental shelf is the extended perimeter of each continent and associated coastal plain. Much of the shelf was exposed during glacial periods, but is now submerged under relatively shallow seas and gulfs, and was similarly submerged during other interglacial periods. The continental margin,...

.

Biology

The Yellowtail trumpeter is a seasonal inhabitant of many estuaries in Western Australia, with the species most abundant in summer due to substantial recruitment of juvenile
Juvenile (organism)
A juvenile is an individual organism that has not yet reached its adult form, sexual maturity or size. Juveniles sometimes look very different from the adult form, particularly in terms of their colour...

s following the spawning
Spawn (biology)
Spawn refers to the eggs and sperm released or deposited, usually into water, by aquatic animals. As a verb, spawn refers to the process of releasing the eggs and sperm, also called spawning...

 period in early summer. During colder months, they tend to move into deeper offshore waters to avoid the large influxes of fresh water entering the estuaries from upland 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...

 systems.

There has also been evidence provided that suggests Yellowtail trumpeter naturally hybridise with another species of freshwater terapontid
Terapontidae
Grunters or tigerperches are fishes in the family Terapontidae . They are found in shallow coastal waters in the Indian Ocean and western Pacific, where they live in saltwater, brackish and freshwater habitats...

, Leiopotherapon unicolor, on occasion.

Diet

The Yellowtail trumpeter is a benthic omnivore
Omnivore
Omnivores are species that eat both plants and animals as their primary food source...

, exhibiting a change in diet
Diet (nutrition)
In nutrition, diet is the sum of food consumed by a person or other organism. Dietary habits are the habitual decisions an individual or culture makes when choosing what foods to eat. With the word diet, it is often implied the use of specific intake of nutrition for health or weight-management...

 over the life of the individual. The younger age class feeds primarily on algae
Algae
Algae are a large and diverse group of simple, typically autotrophic organisms, ranging from unicellular to multicellular forms, such as the giant kelps that grow to 65 meters in length. They are photosynthetic like plants, and "simple" because their tissues are not organized into the many...

 and a range of small crustacean
Crustacean
Crustaceans form a very large group of arthropods, usually treated as a subphylum, which includes such familiar animals as crabs, lobsters, crayfish, shrimp, krill and barnacles. The 50,000 described species range in size from Stygotantulus stocki at , to the Japanese spider crab with a leg span...

s, while older fish prey to a greater extent on polychaete
Polychaete
The Polychaeta or polychaetes are a class of annelid worms, generally marine. Each body segment has a pair of fleshy protrusions called parapodia that bear many bristles, called chaetae, which are made of chitin. Indeed, polychaetes are sometimes referred to as bristle worms. More than 10,000...

s.

Life cycle

Most individuals of the species reach sexual maturity
Sexual maturity
Sexual maturity is the age or stage when an organism can reproduce. It is sometimes considered synonymous with adulthood, though the two are distinct...

 at the end of their second year, with some large fish maturing after only one year. The fish spawn
Spawn (biology)
Spawn refers to the eggs and sperm released or deposited, usually into water, by aquatic animals. As a verb, spawn refers to the process of releasing the eggs and sperm, also called spawning...

 in estuaries, with a number of studies focused on the population
Population
A population is all the organisms that both belong to the same group or species and live in the same geographical area. The area that is used to define a sexual population is such that inter-breeding is possible between any pair within the area and more probable than cross-breeding with individuals...

 of Swan River
Swan River (Western Australia)
The Swan River estuary flows through the city of Perth, in the south west of Western Australia. Its lower reaches are relatively wide and deep, with few constrictions, while the upper reaches are usually quite narrow and shallow....

 in Western Australia. Here they spawn in the upper reaches of the estuary in a period from November to January, producing an average of 310,000 eggs in a season. The spawning period is associated with a lull in the freshwater
Freshwater
Fresh water is naturally occurring water on the Earth's surface in ice sheets, ice caps, glaciers, bogs, ponds, lakes, rivers and streams, and underground as groundwater in aquifers and underground streams. Fresh water is generally characterized by having low concentrations of dissolved salts and...

 influx of the river, resulting in fairly stable salinity
Salinity
Salinity is the saltiness or dissolved salt content of a body of water. It is a general term used to describe the levels of different salts such as sodium chloride, magnesium and calcium sulfates, and bicarbonates...

 and temperature
Temperature
Temperature is a physical property of matter that quantitatively expresses the common notions of hot and cold. Objects of low temperature are cold, while various degrees of higher temperatures are referred to as warm or hot...

 regimes. This allows the species to be very successful in the Swan, and other rivers.

The mature, unfertilised eggs of the Yellowtail trumpeter are small and spherical
Sphere
A sphere is a perfectly round geometrical object in three-dimensional space, such as the shape of a round ball. Like a circle in two dimensions, a perfect sphere is completely symmetrical around its center, with all points on the surface lying the same distance r from the center point...

, having an average diameter
Diameter
In geometry, a diameter of a circle is any straight line segment that passes through the center of the circle and whose endpoints are on the circle. The diameters are the longest chords of the circle...

 of 560 μm. The larva
Larva
A larva is a distinct juvenile form many animals undergo before metamorphosis into adults. Animals with indirect development such as insects, amphibians, or cnidarians typically have a larval phase of their life cycle...

 are pelagic and characterized by an elongate body, which becomes moderately deep and laterally compressed during development. The species grows seasonally, with growth only occurring in the warmer months of the year. Yellowtail trumpeter live for at least 3 years.

Importance to humans

The Yellowtail trumpeter is of minor commercial importance
Fishery
Generally, a fishery is an entity engaged in raising or harvesting fish which is determined by some authority to be a fishery. According to the FAO, a fishery is typically defined in terms of the "people involved, species or type of fish, area of water or seabed, method of fishing, class of boats,...

 throughout its range, caught with handlines, seine
Seine
The Seine is a -long river and an important commercial waterway within the Paris Basin in the north of France. It rises at Saint-Seine near Dijon in northeastern France in the Langres plateau, flowing through Paris and into the English Channel at Le Havre . It is navigable by ocean-going vessels...

s, and other inshore fishing gear. It is not considered particularly good table fare, and considered a nuisance by many recreational fishermen
Recreational fishing
Recreational fishing, also called sport fishing, is fishing for pleasure or competition. It can be contrasted with commercial fishing, which is fishing for profit, or subsistence fishing, which is fishing for survival....

 who target bream
Southern black bream
The southern black bream, Acanthopagrus butcheri, is a species of marine and freshwater fish of the porgy family, Sparidae...

in estuaries.

External links

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