Hapuku

Taxobox | name = Hapuku
regnum = Animalia
phylum = Chordata
classis = Actinopterygii
ordo = Perciformes
familia = Polyprionidae
genus = "Polyprion"
species = "P. oxygeneios"
binomial = "Polyprion oxygeneios"
binomial_authority = (Schneider & Forster, 1801)

The hapuku, hapuka or whapuku, "Polyprion oxygeneios", is a wreckfish of the family Polyprionidae, found around southern Australia, Chile, Tristan da Cunha , and New Zealand, at depths of between 30 and 800 m on rocky reefs on the upper continental shelf. Its length is between 60 and 180 cm, and it can weigh up to 100 kg.

The hapuku is a solid heavy-bodied fish with large eyes, a high spiny dorsal fin, and a slightly concave profile beneath a protruding lower jaw. The heavy square-cut tail can accelerate the fish rapidly. The huge mouth is full of rough, plate-like teeth. They are blue-grey in colour with a whitish belly.

Hapuku live in loose groups and tend to stay in one locality for lengthy periods, and seem to prefer rock pinnacles. In warmer parts of their range they move into shallower waters in the winter to spawn and this is when they may be seen by divers, of which they are unafraid. In colder southern waters this migration is reversed - the fish move offshore to spawn in the winter.

Hapuku may live to at least 60 years.

References

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* Tony Ayling & Geoffrey Cox, "Collins Guide to the Sea Fishes of New Zealand", (William Collins Publishers Ltd, Auckland, New Zealand 1982) ISBN 0-00-216987-8