The Red Sea goby (''Silhouettea aegyptia'') is a species of true goby from the

family Family (from la, familia) is a Social group, group of people related either by consanguinity (by recognized birth) or Affinity (law), affinity (by marriage or other relationship). The purpose of the family is to maintain the well-being of its ...

Gobiidae. It was once a species confined to the Red Sea but it has colonised the Suez Canal and the south-eastern Mediterranean by Lessepsian migration.

Description

The Red Sea goby is marked with many dark vertical spots which have reddish brown edges on a cream background colour. There are 9 or 10 dark spots along the

lateral line The lateral line, also called the lateral line organ (LLO), is a system of sensory organs found in fish, used to detect movement, vibration, and pressure gradients in the surrounding water. The sensory ability is achieved via modified epithelial ...

. It has a short snout and in males the first spine of the first

dorsal fin A dorsal fin is a fin located on the back of most marine and freshwater vertebrates within various taxa of the animal kingdom. Many species of animals possessing dorsal fins are not particularly closely related to each other, though through conv ...

is elongated. There are no scales on the head and nape and there are 24–28 scales in lateral line. It grows to a maximum length of .

Distribution

The Red Sea goby is native to the northern

Red Sea The Red Sea ( ar, البحر الأحمر - بحر القلزم, translit=Modern: al-Baḥr al-ʾAḥmar, Medieval: Baḥr al-Qulzum; or ; Coptic: ⲫⲓⲟⲙ ⲛ̀ϩⲁϩ ''Phiom Enhah'' or ⲫⲓⲟⲙ ⲛ̀ϣⲁⲣⲓ ''Phiom ǹšari''; T ...

. It was described by Paul Chabanaud in 1933 from type specimens collected in Lake Timsah on 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 ...

from where it obviously entered the

Mediterranean Sea The Mediterranean Sea is a sea connected to the Atlantic Ocean, surrounded by the Mediterranean Basin and almost completely enclosed by land: on the north by Western and Southern Europe and Anatolia, on the south by North Africa, and on the ea ...

where it was first recorded in Bardawil Lagoon, Egypt, in 1986. It is now rather common from Sinai to Israel.Atlas of Exotic Fishes in the Mediterranean Sea (Silhouetta aegyptia). 2nd Edition. 2021. 366p. CIESM Publishers, Paris, Monaco.https://ciesm.org/atlas/fishes_2nd_edition/Silhouetta_aegyptia.pdf

Habitat and biology

The Red Sea goby can be found on sandy substrates in inshore, shallow waters where it feeds on harpacticoid copepods and nematodes, as well as oligochaetes,

gastropod The gastropods (), commonly known as snails and slugs, belong to a large taxonomic class of invertebrates within the phylum Mollusca called Gastropoda (). This class comprises snails and slugs from saltwater, from freshwater, and from land. T ...

s and other meiofauna. This species conceals itself by burying itself into the sand up to the level of its eyes. They probably live no longer than 2 years. They reach sexual maturity at a year old. The breeding season is from February to September, peaking in the Red Sea is from May onwards. Females of SL carry 305–408 eggs; it is a repeat spawner with an extended breeding season.

References

{{Taxonbar, From=Q2684781 aegyptia Fish of the Red Sea Taxa named by Paul Chabanaud Fish described in 1933