Gambusia holbrooki Girard, 1859

Çiçek, Erdoğan, Fricke, Ronald, Sungur, Sevil, Çapar, Osman Bahadir & Golani, Daniel, 2023, Freshwater fishes of Israel; a revised and updated annotated checklist- 2023, Zootaxa 5369 (4), pp. 451-484 : 469

Gambusia holbrooki Girard, 1859 [I]—Eastern mosquitofish; Gambusia

Taxonomy. Original description: Gambusia holbrooki Girard 1859: 390 [Palatka, eastern Florida, (Palatka, eastern Florida and Charleston, South Carolina), USA; lectotype: ANSP 6976; lectotype selected by Huber (2019: 64)].— Israel synonyms: None.—Revisions: Rauchenberger (1989: 3).—Illustration: McEachran & Fechhelm (1998: 924, fig.).

Status in Israel. Inroduced to Israel in the 1920’s ( Ben-Tuvia 1981) as Gambusia affinis ; confirmed by Goren & Ortal (1999) Gambusia affinis, Tadmor-Levi et al. (2022) .—Israel material: HUJ, MNHN.

Distribution and habitat. Distribution in Israel: Widespread all basins of Syria (introduced since 1977).— Distribution in River Basin: 1-Western Basin, 2- Dead Sea Basin, 3-Kinneret Basin.—General distribution: North America: Atlantic and Gulf Coast drainages, eastern USA; widely introduced elsewhere for mosquito control.— Distribution in Ecoregion: 436-Coastal Levant, 438- Jordan River.—Habitat: This species often occurs in shallow; often stagnant ponds and the shallow edges of lakes and streams where predatory fishes are largely absent, and temperatures are high. Freshwater, brackish.

Economic importance. No commercial importance.

Reasons of introduction. Bio-control: pest control; its sole task is to eradicate mosquitos’ larvae.

Conservation. Not relevant (introduced species).