Spangled Perch

Interesting Info

• The Spangled Perch is one of Australia’s most tough and adaptable freshwater fish, found across almost the entire continent, even in arid inland regions.
• They get their name from the tiny iridescent blue and green spots (“spangles”) that shimmer across their silvery-golden flanks.
• They are voracious feeders, eating insects, small crustaceans, worms, tadpoles, and even tiny fish. Larger individuals may act like little ambush predators.
• Spangled Perch are famous for their incredible survival skills — they can live in hot, muddy, low-oxygen billabongs where few other fish survive.
• During drought, they sometimes survive in tiny shrinking waterholes and even wet mud until rains return.
• They are known as “dispersal champions” — after big floods, they move rapidly across floodplains and into new creeks, sometimes turning up in isolated pools hundreds of kilometres away.
• For Indigenous Australians, Spangled Perch have long been a traditional food source, caught during floods when the fish move in huge numbers.
• Breeding usually happens in summer after heavy rains, when rising water levels trigger spawning. Females release thousands of tiny eggs that drift with the current and hatch within days.
• Their lifespan is generally short, around 4–6 years, but they make up for it with their ability to breed quickly and often.