Fauna - Wetland Indicator Species List

There is little knowledge about Queensland’s freshwater crustaceans. Expertise should be sought when using Class Crustacea as a wetland indicator species as some species are considered amphibious during their life cycle and may appear outside the wetland environment.

This section includes only the macro freshwater crustacean species within Class Crustacea, Order Decapoda and Family either Palaemondae (freshwater crabs) or Parastacidae (freshwater crayfish).

All wild fish—Chondrichthyes (cartilaginous fish) and Osteichthyes (bony fish)—recognised as recorded within Queensland are considered to be WIS, depending on their typical habitat’s physical characteristics as compared to those described in the Queensland Wetland Program wetland definition.

The fish species in this list largely belong to the freshwater fish that are bed spawners (demersal) with the non-floating eggs sinking to the water column bed or adhering to submerged rocks or vegetation.

Other fish (diadromus) are dependent on estuarine and lower freshwater habitat early in their life cycles. The free floating young then move from the estuarine to the marine environment for their mature lives either breeding at sea or returning to estuarine or freshwater environments to breed.

Some species move downstream to breed in the brackish water or even seawater and then migrate upstream (catadromous). Examples of these are Australian perch and barramundi.

More extensive Queensland fish species lists are available from the Queensland Department of Primary Industries).
Queensland’s watercourses and estuaries are populated by freshwater and estuarine elasmobranchs (rays, bull sharks, sawfish). The taxonomy, distribution and status of these creatures are poorly known and because of this expert guidance is essential if considering these as wetland indicator species.

Recent information on these species is contained in Status of Freshwater and Estuarine Elasmobranchs in Northern Australia

Note that species that may spend a part of their life in a marine environment are outside the scope of this guideline.