zealandia

Fair enough! I shall take my net and see what happens!

Just had a look at the Leopard fish, thankfully it wasn't like that! Looks like I will be taking another trip down there in the hopes of getting a photo- I would love to ID it.

Thanks. I did wonder if it might be sick given it really wasn't that bothered by us getting close to it.

It was narrow like a whitebait. No other colour, just a lot of black pigmentation and the rest transparent. I am not aware of having rudd down here.

Yesterday I was walking along a waterway just a wee bit south of Oamaru, looking out for native fish and inverts. I spotted heaps of invertebrates, some bullies and some whitebait. I also saw a fish I couldn't identify. I have just been looking through Stella's book and once of McDowalls, have checked out the NIWA wesbite and I am still no closer to id-ing it. I wish I had had a camera on me! Anyway, over to you. It was swimming at the very top of the water, in a part of the river that had a gentle current. It was swimming alone and was nowhere near as nervous as the whitebait or bullies so I was able to get quite a close look. It most closely resembled a whitebait, but had a lot of black colouration on the head and back. It was about 5 or 6cm long. Your thoughts?