Ompax spatuloides

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Description

Ompax spatuloides was a fraudulent fish “discovered” in Australia in August 1872. Called poisonous, it appeared on some Australian fish lists until the 1930s. The fish was a joke played by people at Queensland’s Gayndah Station, who fashioned it from the body of a molly, the tail of an eel, and the head of a platypus or needlefish. They cooked it and presented it to Carl Theodor Steger, director of the Brisbane Museum, who sent a sketch and description of the fake to the expert Francis de Laporte de Castellana, who described the supposed “species” in 1879.