Luderick

Luderick the official name, derived from an Aboriginal name, of an Australasian fish, Girella tricuspidata, which is also called blackfish, black bream, and sweep in Australia, and parore in New Zealand. It is especially abundant in the estuaries of New South Wales. Anglers prize it as a game fish, and commercial fisheries for it have some importance.

Doak (1978) has described these fish as ‘swift and wary herbivores [which] more resemble deer than grazers such as sheep’. The three cusps (whence tricuspidata) on their close-set teeth enable them to crop the seaweeds which are their diet (but, it has been noted, always supplemented by the minuscule animal life found on the seaweed—fish fed with pure seaweed soon fall into a decline).