What is a Zombie Fish?
News article posted on 18 May, 2025
And where does it live now?
The Southern Purple-Spotted Gudgeon is a critically endangered small bodied native fish that was declared locally extinct in the state of Victoria in 1998.
In 2019, two Southern Purple Spotted-Gudgeons were discovered at the Reedy Lakes in Kerang and from this small population of fish a breeding program was started at the Melbourne Aquarium. The rediscovery of the fish gave it its nickname Zombie Fish as it was though it had come back to life!
The Southern Purple-Spotted Gudgeon has colourful scales of aqua and purple and grows from 7 to 14 cm long.Zombie Fish along with the Southern Pygmy Perch were recently translocated to Victoria Park Lake, Shepparton as a partnership project between Native Fish Australia, the Goulburn Broken Catchment Management Authority (GB CMA) and RiverConnect. The fish came from a healthy 'surrogate' site population of fish in Bendigo that originate from the fish breeding program at Melbourne Aquarium.
On the fish release day, May 1 2025, students from Shepparton East Primary School and Toolamba Primary School enjoyed a morning learning about threatened small bodied native fish species and were involved in the release of the two fish species into the Victoria Park Lake.
The fish release is part of a broader native fish recovery strategy being undertaken by the Goulburn Broken and North Central CMA, which includes stocking threatened species in local waterways and in private dams with secure water levels and suitable habitat.For more information visit https://www.finterest.au/stories/bringing-back-the-magnificent-six