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Spawning and Development of the New Zealand Sprat, Sprattus Antipodum (Hector)

Introduction

Introduction

While investigating the biology of the New Zealand pilchard, Sardinops neopilchardus (Steindachner), in the Marlborough Sounds during 1966, I obtained samples of adult specimens of the sprat, Sprattus antipodum (Hector), which were in ripe breeding condition. Eggs stripped from these fishes were identical to some containing developing embryos which had been collected shortly before from a plankton tow.

Confirmation that the eggs from the plankton tow were those of Sprattus was provided by rearing them through hatching to an early larval stage, and comparing the larvae with a series through to adults built up from other plankton samples.

Species of the clupeoid genus Sprattus are coastal and estuarine fishes found in the north-eastern and south-western Atlantic Ocean, and in the waters of southern Australia, Tasmania, and New Zealand (Svetovidov, 1952). They are fished commercially only in the waters close to Europe. Although the spawning and development of the European species have been extensively studied (see Fage, 1920; Lebour, 1921; and Russian references in Svetovidov, 1952), little is known about the breeding of the southern hemisphere species.

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Two species, S. antipodum (Hector) and S. muelleri (Klunzinger), have been described from New Zealand, but the identity of the latter species is uncertain and it may be a synonym of S. antipodum according to Svetovidov (1952). Most New Zealand records of the sprat are from the east coast, and indicate that it ranges at least from the Bay of Islands in the north (my collection) to Foveaux Strait in the south (Young and Thomson, 1926). It also occurs at the Auckland Islands (Baker, 1972). In the Marlborough Sounds region the sprat occurs throughout the year in small schools, either homogeneous or mixed with anchovies (Engraulis australis (White)) and/or pilchards of similar size.