Catch and effort information has been collected for many years through commercial logbooks and, more recently, with recreational fishing surveys. In 1995, the Coastal Fisheries Research Project was initiated to collect biological information on reef fish from around the NT coast.
Tricky snapper are from the lethrinid family, and are often called emperors or sometimes sweetlips.
Whilst there are a number of Australian species locally called tricky snappers, in the NT, the name refers to L. laticaudis. The blue-lined emperor is also often referred to as Lethrinus fraenatus. Don t worry, so are the scientists. Trickies probably received their name because of difficulties in their identification. Anyway, L. laticaudis is tan to yellow in colour and can be recognised by the bright blue lines, which radiate out from the eye and connect across the forehead.