Seeking all Aussie Lungfish owners
- Thread starter KuhliaFan
- Start date
I can use a dead lungy if by chance anyone couldn't let go and kept them in the freezer, in fact a dead known age lungfish is like platinum (not gold) as I can take out the teeth and use these to validate the age. Just a long shot in case people know of any dearly departed AUL's around.
David
David
I have been lucky to peruse a career in fisheries science, and even more blessed to get to do some ground breaking research on a threatened fish species and hopefully do my bit to protect them for the future, hopefully well beyond the comprehensible future of humans, like they have persisted for the past 100 million years.
The technique in theory could work on any long lived fish with scales that stay on the body from birth. This is an assumption we are making but using the tooth plates of some fish will let us validate if this assumption is correct.
It's ironic but the atomic bomb testing on the 50's actually is helping unravel many secrets on the natural world today. Only thing is we are rapidly running out of enriched carbon as the half life means it is exponentially decaying. I wonder if we can non destructively enrich the whole world with atomic carbon again like they did it in the good old days. joking.
If anyone wants some more info on what were are doing let me know and I'll post some updates. In the next couple of months we will have some early results from the first batch of 50 wild caught fish ranging from 500 to 1200 mm long. Can't wait to see what the maximum age estimate is for these big boys.
David
I got a scale!!!! It came off today. I put it in a zip lock bag and froze it. Let me know the next steps. I will work on the age of my guy while I wait for your instructions.
Sent from my HTC6435LVW using MonsterAquariaNetwork App
Sent from my HTC6435LVW using MonsterAquariaNetwork App
Whoohoo, that's unreal. Just hold it in freezer. Can you se where on the body it came from, if you could take a photo or just hand draw a little sketch of where it came from that would be informative for our study. I'll organise a pack to send to you with some instructions to get it ready for posting back with a return post pack of course. If you want to PM your postal details I can get it underway.
Good timing as the researcher with the mass accelerometer has refined the method and is looking for some known age fish to verify the method. A very important step to confirm the estimates we make on wild fish are close to the age estimates of a known age fish.
David
Good timing as the researcher with the mass accelerometer has refined the method and is looking for some known age fish to verify the method. A very important step to confirm the estimates we make on wild fish are close to the age estimates of a known age fish.
David
Zeke, thank you very much, the more fish we can get a scale from over a wide range of ages the better our research results will be. Do you know the birth year of your fish? This information will greatly add to the conservation of Australian lungfish. How amazing it will be to know that your relatively simple task of saving a scale is helping preserve the worlds oldest living vertebrate. Get back in touch once you find a scale and I can send you a pack of gear to prep the scale for posting. Try to make a note of where on the body the scale came from. We try to measure scales from the side of the body, but will take any we can get.
David
