Fish fauna and ecology

Abstract

In sharp contrast with the marine waters around New Guinea*, which harbor the rich Indo-Pacific fish fauna, the freshwaters of New Guinea support a depauperate fish fauna by the standards of tropical freshwaters elsewhere in the world. Zoogeographically they form part of the Australian region and are largely lacking in ‘true’ freshwater species. The species and families have been derived relatively recently from marine forms and contain a large component of estuarine and catadromous species.