ABSTRACT
Five species of Anguilla occur in Australia and New Zealand (hereafter called Australasia), A. australis, A. dieffenbachii, A. reinhardtii, A. obscura, and A. bicolor, but of these the latter two species occur in only limited areas of northeast Australia and do not constitute signifi cant fi sheries (Jellyman 2003). Accordingly, the following discussion is confi ned to A. australis, A. dieffenbachii, and A. reinhardtii. Out of these three species, A. dieffenbachii is endemic to New Zealand, A. australis occurs throughout New Zealand and along the southern part of the east coast of Australia, while A. reinhardtii, a tropical species, predominates in the central and northern regions of the east coast of Australia and is also found in Tasmania and in small numbers in the upper North Island of New Zealand. Spawning grounds are unknown for all these species, although results from pop-up tags (Jellyman and Tsukamoto 2010) indicate that A. dieffenbachii might spawn in the South Fiji basin. Likewise, results from a Lagrangian simulation model of near-surface fl ows indicate
National Institute of Water and Atmosphere, PO Box 8602, Christchurch 8053, New Zealand. Email: don.jellyman@niwa.co.nz
possible overlapping spawning grounds of A. australis, A. dieffenbachii, A. reinhardtii in the same general area (Jellyman and Bowen 2009).
