Globefish breeding ground?

Markus Stone recently alerted me to an observation he made of an unusually large school of Globefish at Portsea, Victoria. He wondered if this might have been a spawning aggregation.
I forwarded Markus' observation to Australian Museum Senior Fellow Dr Jeff Leis who stated, "I have not heard of, nor seen, this species schooling, but other species of Diodon (D. holocanthus and D. eydouxii) do school at times, so it isn't a surprise. Could indeed be a spawning aggregation."
While writing this journal entry I queried on the species name and found another observation of the same species at Portsea. This observation was made by Peter Fuller. These two observations plus a video by Markus show that this possible spawning aggregation was in the same locality for several weeks.
Thank you Markus and Peter for helping increase our knowledge of this species.
Posted on March 31, 2017 03:22 AM by markmcg markmcg

Comments

I have previously supplied an image from Byron Bay NSW showing a large aggregation of Diodon hystrix so the aggregation habit of Diodon species seem to be quite common.

Posted by geminus almost 7 years ago

Hi @geminus. Thank you for letting me know that you posted an observation of D. hystrix at Byron Bay. I've looked through your observations but can't find it. Can you please let me know the observation number? I'm keen to add a post-script to this journal entry about D. hystrix if you can point me to your observation. Thanks again.

Posted by markmcg almost 7 years ago

I was involved in monitoring the colonising fish community on the scuttled former HMAS Swan in Dunsborough, Western Australia (sunk as a dive wreck 20 years ago this year!). A small community of Globefish established early and maintained at a couple of dozen for the first year post-sinking but then started to grow and after about 25 months, we had a school of 200-300 at the bow of the wreck. It was the first any of us had ever seen or heard of schooling in this species. A school of this size is now an almost permanent fixture at the wreck some 18 years later and it does not seem to come and go with any seasons, so I'm not so sure it is a spawning event. It is a great selling point for the local dive charter.

Posted by gmoo almost 7 years ago

Hi @gmoo. Thanks heaps for your informative comment. The HMAS Swan sounds like a great dive. I'll pass this information on to Jeff. Agreed, our 'spawning event' might not be one after all.

Posted by markmcg almost 7 years ago

Hey again @gmoo. Do you have a photo of the school on the Swan or can perhaps line up someone who does to submit one? It would be great to continue to flesh out this story if we can. :) Thank you, M.

Posted by markmcg almost 7 years ago

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