romance, spawning.

Sixty-something, twenty-two pounds, 42 inches long, mottled grey-green -- rare Australian lungfish hoping to avoid extinction.

Would-be partners should be introduced to Bermudian matchmaker Mr. David Lonsdale.

Former Bermuda Aquarium curator Mr. Lonsdale, now working in America, is hoping to inspire romance in the lungfish, despite its homely looks and age.

He would also like to find out whether it's male or female.

Prospective partners have a dubious enticement -- a possible honeymoon in a muddy, 14-foot recreation of Australia's Brisbane River.

Mr. Lonsdale, who left Bermuda in 1980, is the deputy director of Chicago's Shedd Aquarium.

He is involved in a project to breed the endangered Australian lungfish. There are just 19 in the United States.

"It is a fresh water fish and there are not too many of them. There are certainly none in Bermuda,'' said Mr. Lonsdale, who makes periodic visits to the Island.

"It is the oldest fish we have in this aquarium.'' Scientists are using all manner of devices to get their rare 63-year-old catch in the mood.

These include mirrors, special lighting, and cold water.

They also put it in a new tank recently -- one that meticulously recreates the lungfish's habitat in the Brisbane River.

"We are hoping to get five additional Australian lungfish. It has all been set up,'' said Mr. Lonsdale.

"Australia has a really well developed conservation programme, and it's very hard to get native animals out of Australia.

"We are very pleased to that they are listening to our needs, and we hope to be getting these fish.'' Mr. Lonsdale pointed out the problems of finding out the old fish's sex.

"It is so old we are very reluctant to do anything to it, even to find out whether it is male or female,'' he explained.

If successful in breeding the fish -- a living fossil that breathes with a lung and has not evolved in 100 million years -- the aquarium will be the first in the world to do so.

"It will be an event when zoologists get lungfish to spawn in this country,'' said James W. Atz, curator emeritus at the American Museum of Natural History in New York.

Lungfish, which can obtain oxygen from the atmosphere, are found in Australia, Africa and South America.

The African and South American variants are more highly evolved, with two lungs and the ability to lie dormant when drought dries up their streams.

The fish are critical to researchers because they provide insight into the evolutionary period when the first amphibians crawled ashore and began evolving into land creatures.

"If you are interested in getting at the root of things, you look at fishes,'' said John Wourms, a Clemson University zoologist who specialises in evolutionary development.

Scientists don't know exactly what switches on the lungfish's mating drive.

Researchers have noticed that females tend to ovulate during the springtime, perhaps due to cool spring rains washing into the river and lowering the alkaline content.

Mr. David Lonsdale.