Fish
Fish
Mountain Mullet
Agonostomus monticola
The Mountain Mullet is a hardy, fast-swimming fish of clear mountain streams, undertaking a life-cycle migration between rivers and the sea that makes it dependent on unobstructed waterways from headwater to coast.
The Mountain Mullet is a hardy, fast-swimming fish of clear mountain streams, undertaking a life-cycle migration between rivers and the sea that makes it dependent on unobstructed waterways from headwater to coast.
Identification
A streamlined, silvery fish with a slightly forked tail and a small, terminal mouth, typically 15 to 25 cm in length, with a torpedo-shaped body well adapted to holding position and swimming against strong current in fast-flowing rocky streams.
Ecology
Amphidromous: adults live and spawn in freshwater streams, but newly hatched larvae are swept downstream to the sea, where they spend an early developmental period before migrating back upriver as juveniles to mature and eventually breed in the same headwater streams. This two-way migratory life cycle, repeated across generations, is entirely dependent on an unobstructed connection between mountain streams and the coast, making the species vulnerable to any barrier that blocks either downstream larval drift or upstream juvenile migration.
In Trinidad and Tobago
Found in clear, fast-flowing rivers and streams on both islands, particularly in the Northern Range of Trinidad and Tobago's hill streams, where rocky, well-oxygenated conditions and an unbroken path to the sea support its migratory life history.
Threats
- Stream barriers (dams, culverts) blocking migration
- Water pollution and sedimentation
