Races and Populations of the Australian Pilchard, Sardinops neopilchardus (Steindachner)

Abstract

The evidence of taxonomic differentiation in the Australian pilchard is reviewed. Three major groups (called races), located respectively in eastern, south-eastern, and south-western Australian waters, are distinguished by differences in growth rate. The boundary zone of the two former is near the New South Wales-Victoria bolder, but it is not certain to which of the two latter races the South Australian fish belong. The two former races are sukdivided into smaller, more or less separate stocks (populations), which are distinguished mainly by differences in mean number of vertebrae and in abundance fluctuations. There are at least two such groups in the eastern race, which meet between Port Jackson and Jervis Bay, and at least two in the south-eastern race. The pilchards of Cook Strait, New Zealand, are probably distinct from those of any Australian locality.