The upokororo was wrongly named a grayling by early settlers who thought it was like the European grayling. It is not related.
This watercolour, painted in 1889 by Frank Edward Clarke, is one of the few clues we have to the colouring of this fish. There are 12 specimens of the grayling found in museums around the world, but the formalin or alcohol they’re preserved in means they have lost their colour.
Rights: Prototroctes oxyrhynchus (White spotted greyling), 1889, New Zealand, by Frank Edward Clarke. Purchased 1921. Te Papa (1992-0035-2278/1)
Published: 8 December 2017Size: 1.22 MB
