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3.3 Fishes
New Zealand’s diverse fish assemblage is a globally unique
mix of widespread, Indo-Pacific, Australasian, subantarctic,
and endemic faunas. Approximately half of the species are
widespread and about 18% are endemic to New Zealand. Many
coastal species are widespread around the North and South islands,
with northern species (ca 15% of coastal fishes) reaching southern
limits between East Cape and Cook Strait, and southern species
(ca. 8% of coastal fishes) reaching northern limits between Banks
Peninsula and Cook Strait. Oceanic and deepwater species show
a similar mix of northern and southern distributions, with the
Chatham Rise marking the distributional limit for many species.
Workshop participants specialising in fish taxonomy and ecology
delineated 12 areas in New Zealand’s marine environment that are
regarded as key locations for fish biodiversity. They also identified
categories of fish that are an important component of New Zealand’s
marine biodiversity, but whose locations cannot be easily represented
on a two-dimensional map, or whose distributions are unknown.
These categories include deepwater and pelagic fishes and hoki
(Macruronus novaezelandiae).
Contributors: Clinton Duffy, Malcolm Francis, Bob McDowall,
Chris Paulin, and Rob Murdoch.
References and further reading: Paulin and Roberts (1992),
Francis (1996), Anderson et al. (1998).
Blue moki
©2004 DOC, Te Papa Atawhai
BIODIVERSITY – NEW ZEALAND’S MARINE ECOREGION ■ 33