Survivors: The Animals and Plants that Time has Left Behind by Fortey Richard

Author:Fortey, Richard [Fortey, Richard]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Harper Collins, Inc.
Published: 2011-08-31T23:00:00+00:00

7

Of Fishes and Hellbenders

The road running northwards from Brisbane commands open views of the Glasshouse Mountains, isolated peaks that are the remnants of extinct volcanoes. Conical protuberances stick up above the rain forest, their bareness contrasting with lushness everywhere else: they are probably ‘plugs’ composed of hard rock that filled vents at the end of the eruptions. Seawards along Queensland’s Sunshine Coast discreet developments are tucked away, designed for a newly affluent class that can work remotely. Further inland, Maleny is a small, neat town of low, painted wooden buildings with a half-concealed hippy past, lying on a ridge in the Blackall Mountains. It offers a view both ways, towards the sea and down into a wooded valley below. We choose the latter, for the lungfish lie that way. A valley floor is reached by minor, paved roads, and supports a series of dairy farms that would not seem out of place in some of the richer parts of England, such as the Welsh Borderland. The difference becomes apparent when I spot a distinctive species of monkey puzzle tree, and notice that these cows are sheltering in the shade of a huge, dark-leaved fig. Peter Kind is showing us the upper reaches of the Mary River, where the lungfish hide. We are in search of the great survivor among the vertebrates, the animals with backbones. This is a creature that traces our own evolutionary line back to the days when our ancestors broke free from having to live under water.

Queensland is the only place in the world where this particular species of lungfish (Neoceratodus forsteri) survives. Among a handful of living lungfishes, it is regarded as the most primitive living form. Much of the research on its biology has been conducted in the last decade. Before that, the fish pottered along for hundreds of millions of years minding its own business. In the right habitat it is not rare, the Burnett and Mary catchments being its two main redoubts. At one time 20,000 fish were tagged on the Burnett River catchment, and a low rate of recapture was a good indication of a large wild population. That does not mean that the fishes are safe from human interference. Growth in the rural population of the Brisbane hinterland in Queensland has meant a greater demand for water, and the Mary River seemed to provide a ready source. The Traveston Crossing Dam project of 2006 sought to solve future water shortages by damming the Mary River. No doubt somebody in the planning office thought that more water might do the lungfish nothing but good. But it was absolutely necessary to discover more about the needs of lungfishes before the dam could go ahead. Peter Kind was part of a research team tracking individual fish to learn something about the way they patrolled the river, and how and when they reached their spawning grounds. Because some of the sites are very hard to reach, and because the fish are peripatetic, radio tags were attached to them that could be tracked from the air.

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