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Elephant Fish
Callorhinchus milii (Bory de Saint-Vincent, 1823)
A 58cm long Elephant Fish trawled in November 1984 by FRV Kapala at a depth of 70m, off Bermagui, New South Wales (AMS I.25320-002). View larger image.
Egg case of an Elephant Fish washed up on a beach in Port Phillip Bay, Victoria.
The Elephant Fish can be easily recognised by the hoe-shaped structure on the snout. Its head has a series of obvious sensory canals and pores. The pectoral fins are large, the first dorsal fin is preceded by a strong, serrated spine, and the caudal fin has a long upper lobe.
The body is silvery white, and sometimes has darker markings behind the eyes and on the fins.
This strange looking fish grows to 1.2m in length.
It lives to depths of at least 200m on the continental shelf of southern Australia and New Zealand, where it is caught commercially.
In spring, females migrate into coastal bays and estuaries to lay their egg cases (lower image) in sand and muddy substrates. The distinctively-shaped egg cases are sometimes found washed ashore after storms. They are up to 25cm long, 10cm wide, and take up to eight months to hatch.
The Elephant Fish has a skeleton made of cartilage. Sharks and rays also have cartilaginous skeletons. All three groups of fishes are classified in the class Chondrichthyes.
Further reading
- Gorman, T.B.S. 1963. Biological and Economic Aspects of the Elephant Fish Callorhynchus milii Bory in Pegasus Bay and the Canterbury Bight. New Zealand Marine Department Fisheries Technical Report. 8. Pp. 54.
- Last, P.R. & J.D. Stevens. 1994 Sharks and Rays of Australia. CSIRO. Pp. 513.
- McGrouther, M.A. 2000. Elephant Fish. in q&a. Nature Australia. 26(10): 82.
- Whitley, G.P. 1940. The fishes of Australia. Part I. The sharks, rays, devil-fish, and other primitive fishes of Australia and New Zealand. Royal Zoological Society N.S.W., Australian Zoological Handbook 1-280.
