Thunnus maccoyii
Southern Bluefin Tuna [+]

Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Actinopterygii
Order: Perciformes
Family: Scombridae
Genus: Thunnus
species: Thunnus maccoyii
+ITIS +WoRMS +Conservation Status

Description & Behavior

Southern bluefin tuna, Thunnus maccoyii (Castelnau, 1872), are a very large species commonly caught by Indonesian and Japanese commercial long-liners in the Indian Ocean, their spawning ground. If the southern bluefin tuna reaches adulthood (around 12 years) before it's caught, it can grow up to 2.45 m and weigh up to 260 kg. These fish have a swim bladder and are silvery white in color on their lower sides and ventral side. The first dorsal fin is either yellow or blue and the anal fin and finlets are dusky yellow edged with black. The median caudal keel is yellow in adults. They are marked with with colorless transverse lines and rows of colorless dots. The southern bluefin tuna is a large pelagic species that lives between 20 and 40 years of age.

World Range & Habitat

Thunnus maccoyii can be found in the Atlantic, Indian and Pacific Oceans in both temperate and cold seas, primarily between 10°S and 50°S, to nearly 60°S. They are pelagic with a depth range between 0-50 m. They prefer to inhabit temperate waters between 5-20°C.

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Feeding Behavior (Ecology)

Southern bluefin tuna, Thunnus maccoyii, are opportunistic feeders that prey on a wide variety of fishes, crustaceans, cephalopods, salps and other marine animals.

Life History

Thunnus maccoyii are often caught near their spawning grounds in the Indian Ocean. During spawning, large fish migrate to tropical seas, off the west coast of Australia, up to 10°S. Spawning fish and larvae can be found in waters with surface temperatures between 20-30°C. They have a minimum population doubling time of 4.5 - 14 years, making the southern bluefin tuna a prime target for overfishing.

Comments

Southern bluefin tuna are a highly migratory species. If the current exploitation continues, the population will be below 500 mature individuals within the next century, which is a number far too low to be sustainable.

Southern bluefin tuna, Thunnus maccoyii, are listed as Critically Endangered (CR A1bd) on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species:

CRITICALLY ENDANGERED (CR)
A taxon is Critically Endangered when it is facing an extremely high risk of extinction in the wild in the immediate future, as defined by any of the criteria (A to E) as described here.

References & Further Research

BioOne ~ CITES ~ Discover Life ~ GBIF ~ Google Scholar ~ ITIS ~ IUCN RedList ~ MarineBio Network ~ NCBI ~ SCIRIS ~ SIRIS ~ Tree of Life Web Project ~ Wikipedia

Commercial And Recreational Components Of The Southern Bluefin Tuna (Thunnus Maccoyii) Fishery - Interactions of Pacific tuna fisheries, Volume 2, Papers on biology and fisheries, Fao Fisheries Technical Paper 336/2
Southern bluefin tuna fishery chapter, Fishery Status Report - 2004, Australian Government Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry (PDF)
CCSBT Commission for the Conservation of Southern Bluefin Tuna
Myers RA, Worm B (2005) Decline of Pacific tuna populations exaggerated? - Reply. Nature (PDF)

Search the Web for Southern Bluefin Tuna » ARKive ~ Ask.com ~ Ask Jeeves ~ bing ~ deviantART ~ dmoz ~ Dogpile ~ Google Images ~ MySpace Images ~ OceanFootage ~ Picsearch ~ StumbleUpon ~ Yahoo! Images ~ YouTube

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Citation: Thunnus maccoyii, Southern Bluefin Tuna - MarineBio.org. Retrieved , from .

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Thunnus maccoyii Southern Bluefin Tuna [+]