One of the last ‘freaks’ of Australian natural history to come to the attention of European science was Ceratodus, the Queensland lungfish (known today as Neoceratodus forsteri). It normally breathes through gills like other fish, but, when the oxygen levels in the water fall, it can rise to the surface and gulp air straight into its lung, an organ that other fish do not possess. The Australian lungfish is unlike lungfish in Africa and South America, in that it can live both underwater and on land. Fish with lungs were known only as fossils in the northern hemisphere at the time of the naming of Ceratodus, so the Queensland specimen was immediately dubbed a ‘living fossil’.

Ceratodus had an immediate place in the history of ideas. Its relevance to debates about Darwinian evolutionary theory, debates that had been heated since the publication of The Origin of Species in 1859, was obvious. Natural selection depended on continuities, but the classes of animals lacked ‘missing links’. Classes of fish, amphibians, reptiles, birds and mammals seemed discrete (apart from such absolute anomalies as the paradoxical platypus). Ceratodus, however, as a lung-breathing fish, was clearly halfway between fish and amphibian. It was of course, also intriguing because it was halfway between dead (fossilised, like its nearest relatives) and alive (known to science). It was also interesting because it was not unknown – only unknown to science. Not only Aboriginal people, but also the Mary River and Wide Bay district squatters ate it, calling it ‘Burnett Salmon’ for its pink flesh.

‘Considering that the fish is not uncommon and has for some years been used as an article of food,’ wrote Alex M. Thomson, Professor of Geology at Sydney University to Sir Richard Owen in 1870, ‘it is surprising that it had not fallen into scientific hands much earlier’.^[22] Owen, as Superintendent of the Natural History Collections at the British Museum, was in a position to dissect the fish and determine its place in the citadel of knowledge. Only at the heart of Empire were there sufficient type specimens of fish to decide where this one fitted. Gerard Krefft’s independence in publishing in Australia – in the Sydney Morning Herald, of all places – suggested a growing bloody-minded independence in the hearts of colonial scientists at arms’ length from good specimens.^[23] Ronald Strahan records that Gerard Krefft, the Director of the Australian Museum, had identified the fish as interesting when seeing so-called ‘Burnett Salmon’ being prepared for the table at the home of Mary River squatter and later New South Wales Minister for Lands, William Forster.^[24] Thomson’s letter accompanied a specimen of the fish taken from a tributary of the Mary River and sent to England within months of Krefft’s announcement. The specimen was chosen for Owen and his staff because it had ‘not been cut in the least, so that I trust it will reach you in a fit state for dissection’.^[25]

Edward Smith Hill prepared the field notes for the Australian Museum file, dated 30 June 1870. Hill was a retired wine and spirit merchant, best known for his work on flora and geology. He was also a trustee of the Museum, an anti-Darwinian and no friend of Krefft’s. It was possibly he who arranged for the fish specimen to be collected for Owen at the British Museum. In his description, Hill noted that some Aboriginal people called the fish ‘Barramundi’. Hill was known as a defender of Aboriginal rights and clearly had regular dealings with Aboriginal people. Aboriginal collectors may have been essential to collecting a specimen in such good condition.^[26] If Aborigines were involved, then the Australian Museum’s was the first of a number of significant international scientific/colonial frontier encounters in the very limited part of Queensland where Ceratodus can be found. Only certain sections of two rivers, the Mary and the Burnett, were suitable for the fish, the temperature and balance between salt and fresh water being critical to their survival.^[27]

Albert Günther undertook a full anatomical analysis of Ceratodus at the British Museum. Gerard Krefft’s use of the name Ceratodus showed that he was well aware of the fossil fish of the northern hemisphere and recognised that the ‘new’ fish had an ancient lineage. Even so Günther’s anatomical description of the fish as an ‘intermediate form’ between fish and amphibians excited Krefft very much. In July 1870 (some time before Günther’s paper on the anatomy of the fish was published), he wrote ‘your Ceratodus forsteri if true a greatest discovery …[I am] amazed at it.’^[28] Krefft, an evolutionary sympathiser, wrote regularly to Günther, mostly in German. Although Krefft had given the fish its name, his use of the pronoun ‘your’ suggests that he was giving Günther credit for seeing additional significance in the specimen. The warm tone might have been attributable to Krefft’s and Günther’s common German background, but it is more likely that this correspondent allowed Krefft to sidestep the more senior anti-Darwinian, Richard Owen.

The anti-evolutionary bias of the senior scientists of the Australian colonies at the time delayed local work on the lungfish after its discovery. Mulvaney and Calaby commented of this period that: ‘It was rather remarkable that the members of the Australian scientific establishment almost to a man … were vocal opponents of Darwin’s ideas on the origin of species by means of natural selection.’^[29] Krefft himself ran foul of anti-evolutionary forces with his trustees. In 1874, he was physically removed from the Museum from which he refused to resign – ignominiously carried out onto the footpath outside by two prizefighters employed by the Trustees.^[30] The bitter battle that ensued after Krefft’s dismissal put paid to further research papers from the Australian scientist most sympathetic to Darwinian evolution.^[31]

I want to leave the hypothetical might-have-beens and return to the reasons for ‘discovering’ Ceratodus in 1870. The limitations of its habitat and the narrowness of its geographical distribution made its discovery by a scientifically-literate observer improbable. The relevant part of Queensland could hardly be said to be new to European eyes at this time, but it was probably still fair to call it frontier country. Indeed the idea of a continuing frontier in Queensland dies hard. As David Trigger has observed, Queensland premiers were still talking about the state as a ‘a new frontier’ bound to create an ‘era of prosperity’ in the 1990s.^[32] Wide Bay had been surveyed in 1848, and there had been ‘settlement’ up both rivers. This perhaps masked the area’s scientific interest. Once exploration finished, good scientific observers may have had a tendency to move to other unsettled/pristine sites, leaving the settlement frontier to squatters and adventurers, who may or may not have been good natural history observers. When the squatters at the frontier did make an observation, the scientists were slow to believe them. William Forster, had described Ceratodus but had been disbelieved by Gerard Krefft until 1870, a point Krefft confessed in his letter to the Sydney Morning Herald. The species name forsteri was a belated attempt to make amends to the now important Forster.