HEMIRAMPHIDAE: GARFISHES

© D. Muirhead, MLSSA

The Hemiramphidae family (garfishes and halfbeaks) currently contains 13 genera and 121 named species (Froese and Pauly, 2009). Members of the family are distributed throughout the Atlantic, Indian and Pacific Oceans. Hyporhamphus is the most speciose genus, all confined to the Indo-West Pacific. Some species are marine, some estuarine, and some freshwater (Nelson, 1994, cited in Froese and Pauly, 2009).

The family is defined by one derived character: a third pair of upper pharyngeal bones anklylosed into a plate. Most hemirhamphids also have an elongate lower jaw (much longer than the upper jaw); premaxillae pointed anteriorly; and short pectoral and pelvic fins (Nelson, 1994, cited in Froese and Pauly, 2009).

Most hemiramphid fishes live at or near the water surface, and are protectively coloured for this mode of life, being green or blue on the back and silvery white on the sides and ventrally. The tip of the lower jaw is bright red or orange in most species. Most are omnivorous, feeding on floating seagrasses, small crustaceans and other zooplankton, and small fishes. During reproduction, eggs are attached to algae or seagrass, in shallow waters.

The flesh of garfishes and halfbeaks is considered excellent quality, and larger species are utilized as food in many parts of the world. They are usually caught with seines or dip-netted under lights at night (Froese and Pauly, 2009).

In Australia, there are 18 species from the Hemiramphidae (CSIRO, 2009), and many of these are tropical. Two species are described below, one of which, the River Garfish is reliant upon estuaries (which are few in number in South Australia - the edge of the geographic range for this species), and Southern Sea Garfish, a heavily fished food species found across southern Australia, and one of the top 4 targeted finfish species in South Australia.

Associated taxa