''Oxyurichthys petersii'', commonly known as Peters' goby, is a species of
ray-finned fish, a
goby, from the
family Oxudercidae. It is native to the
Red Sea, and has now colonised the eastern
Mediterranean Sea by
Lessepsian migration through the
Suez Canal
The Suez Canal ( arz, قَنَاةُ ٱلسُّوَيْسِ, ') is an artificial sea-level waterway in Egypt, connecting the Mediterranean Sea to the Red Sea through the Isthmus of Suez and dividing Africa and Asia. The long canal is a popular ...
.
Taxonomy
''Oxyurichthys petersii'' was first formally
described in 1871 as ''Apocryptes petersii'' by the German
zoologist Carl Benjamin Klunzinger with the type locality given as Al-Qusair in the
Red Sea Governorate of Egypt.
The
specific name Specific name may refer to:
* in Database management systems, a system-assigned name that is unique within a particular database
In taxonomy, either of these two meanings, each with its own set of rules:
* Specific name (botany), the two-part (bino ...
honours the
German naturalist and explorer
Wilhelm Peters (1815-1883) who was a curator at the
Berlin Zoological Museum and who allowed the
author of this species liberal access to the museum's collection.
Description
''Oxyurichthys petersii'' is grey-blue in colour marked with blue spots and streaks on the head and the body. It does not have the vertical bars seen in ''
Oxyurichthys papuensis
''Oxyurichthys papuensis'', commonly known as the frogface goby, is a species
In biology, a species is the basic unit of classification and a taxonomic rank of an organism, as well as a unit of biodiversity. A species is often defined as ...
'', with which it has been confused. The
caudal fin is reddish with a dark edge and there is a dark spot on the caudal peduncle. The
pelvic fin
Pelvic fins or ventral fins are paired fins located on the ventral surface of fish. The paired pelvic fins are homologous to the hindlimbs of tetrapods.
Structure and function Structure
In actinopterygians, the pelvic fin consists of two en ...
s are bluish marked with yellow spots and lines and the
pectoral fins are yellowish in colour with white spots while the
dorsal and
anal fin
Fins are distinctive anatomical features composed of bony spines or rays protruding from the body of a fish. They are covered with skin and joined together either in a webbed fashion, as seen in most bony fish, or similar to a flipper, as se ...
s are either transparent or have a reddish hue and have blue lines. Caudal fin reddish with dark margin.
The ventral surface is whitish. The first dorsal fin is low with the tips of the spines extending beyond the membrane and these may be longer in males than in females.
Distribution
''Oxyurichthys petersii'' was endemic to the Red Sea, and was first recorded in the Mediterranean Sea in 1982 off
Ashdod
Ashdod ( he, ''ʾašdōḏ''; ar, أسدود or إسدود ''ʾisdūd'' or '' ʾasdūd'' ; Philistine: 𐤀𐤔𐤃𐤃 *''ʾašdūd'') is the sixth-largest city in Israel. Located in the country's Southern District, it lies on the Mediterran ...
(Israel).
It is now caught in large quantities in trawl fisheries in the eastern Basin.
[Atlas of Exotic Fishes in the Mediterranean Sea (''Oxyurichthys petersi''). 2nd Edition. 2021. 366p. CIESM Publishers, Paris, Monaco.https://ciesm.org/atlas/fishes_2nd_edition/Oxyurichthys_petersi.pdf]
Habitat and biology
''Oxyurichthys petersii'' lives on soft bottoms
[ and is a carnivorous species which has been found to have sand and mud in their intestinal tract which suggest they feed on the bottom. Animals found in samples include ]formanifera
Foraminifera (; Latin for "hole bearers"; informally called "forams") are single-celled organisms, members of a phylum or class of amoeboid protists characterized by streaming granular ectoplasm for catching food and other uses; and commonly an ...
ns, harpactoid copepods, tanaidaceans, amphipods, isopods, ostracods, molluscs and echinoderms
An echinoderm () is any member of the phylum Echinodermata (). The adults are recognisable by their (usually five-point) radial symmetry, and include starfish, brittle stars, sea urchins, sand dollars, and sea cucumbers, as well as the sea li ...
. The gonads of fish sampled in August and November off Israel were well developed.[
]
References
{{Taxonbar, from=Q21349072
petersii
Taxa named by Carl Benjamin Klunzinger
Fish described in 1871