The Barcoo grunter, also known as jade perch (scortum barcoo), is a native Australian freshwater fish found in the eastern Northern Territory rivers of Limmen, Roper, Macarthur; the Barkley Basin, and between the Gilbert River in Northern Queensland and the Lake Eyre drainage of central Australia.

Barcoo Grunter is an excellent food fish, and is often farmed in intensive grow-out ponds or tanks in aquaculture.

Now Saltbush Bill was a drover tough as ever the country knew, He had fought his way on the Great Stock Routes from the sea to the big Barcoo; He could tell when he came to a friendly run that gave him a chance to spread, And he knew where the hungry owners were that hurried his sheep ahead; He was drifting down in the Eighty drought with a mob that could scarcely creep (When the kangaroos by the thousand starve, it is rough on the travelling sheep), And he camped one night at the crossing-place on the edge of the Wilga run; "We must manage a feed for them here," he said, "or half of the mob are done!"

– Saltbush Bill On the outer Barcoo where the churches are few, And men of religion are scanty, On a road never cross'd 'cept by folk that are lost, One Michael Magee had a shanty.

– A Bush Christening There's a man that went out in the flood time and drought, By the banks of the outer Barcoo, And they called him Mad Jack cause the swag on his back, Was the perch for an old cockatoo.