Large Australian fish: Crossword clue answer

Large Australian fish: Crossword clue answer

If you need a large Australian fish to solve a crossword clue, it might be a whale shark, red snapper, flake or Murray cod. The most likely “large Australian fish” crossword clue answer, however, is barramundi.

Solving crossword clues isn’t usually within this site’s remit, but it seems some visitors have stumbled across the site searching for help with one.

The crossword clue in question is “large Australian fish”. As far as Australia Travel Questions can work out, this is something that has cropped up in a crossword somewhere in the UK. So let’s attempt to answer it, both for this particular crossword and others in future.

Large Australian fish crossword clue

The problem with this “large Australian fish” crossword clue is, of course, that Australia has several large fish.

The largest fish found in Australian waters is the whale shark. This is also the biggest fish in the world, and you can swim with whale sharks on the Ningaloo Reef in Western Australia.

Large Australian fish

However, this is unlikely to be the answer to the “large Australian fish” crossword clue. Whale sharks are found elsewhere, and are not especially Australian. The same would apply to other well-known big fish such as red snappers, marlin, groupers or tuna.

Therefore, the answer is likely to be a fish distinctly associated with Australia. One option is the flake fish commonly used in fish and chips. Flake can be several species, though, albeit usually gummy shark.

Murray cod and barramundi

So that leaves two plausible answers: The Murray cod and the barramundi. The Murray cod lives in the southern river systems of Australia, most notably the Murray River. It is suitably huge, but it doesn’t have the same restaurant menu notoriety as the barramundi.

Barramundi is a staple on Australian restaurant menus, and it’s a fantastic-tasting fish. The name comes from the Aboriginal language around the Rockhampton region in Queensland. It was originally used to refer to an entirely different fish.

Where do barramundi live?

However, barramundi sounded good, and it was appropriated for marketing purposes to rebrand the Asian sea bass. This is a fish that lives across much of South Asia and Papua New Guinea. But it has had most commercial success in Australia, to the point where it is commercially farmed in places such as Karumba on the Gulf of Carpentaria.

The Les Wilson Barramundi Discovery Centre in Karumba, Queensland
The Les Wilson Barramundi Discovery Centre in Karumba, Queensland. Photo courtesy of Tourism and Event Queensland.

So, despite barramundi not being a uniquely Australian fish, it is the most likely answer to the “large Australian fish” crossword clue.