Odondebuenia balearica ( Pellegrin & Fage, 1907 )

Kovačić, Marcelo, Renoult, Julien P., Pillon, Roberto, Svensen, Rudolf, Bogorodsky, Sergey V., Engin, Semih & Louisy, Patrick, 2022, Identification of Mediterranean marine gobies (Actinopterygii: Gobiidae) of the continental shelf from photographs of in situ individuals, Zootaxa 5144 (1), pp. 1-103 : 70-71

Odondebuenia balearica ( Pellegrin & Fage, 1907) ( Fig. 26 )—Coralline Goby

Eleotris balearicus Pellegrin & Fage, 1907: 11 ; type locality: western Mediterranean Sea, Spain, Balearic Islands, north of Cabrera Island .

Size. Maximum size about 3.6 cm total length.

Morphology. D VI + I,9–10; A I,9–10; P 14–16. Small species with a moderately elongated body. Head not prominently dorsoventrally flattened. Deep caudal peduncle, nearly same as body depth below mid second dorsal fin. First dorsal fin triangular, with the first spine longest, more elongated and pointed in males ( Fig. 26 ). Caudal fin rounded. Anterior nostril tubular without process from rear rim. Uppermost and lowermost scales on caudal-fin base conspicuously enlarged and with elongated ctenii although this is rarely visible in photographs. The pelvic fins are separated, which is also hardly noticeable from lateral view ( Miller & Tortonese 1968; Miller 1986; Ahnelt et al. 1994; Kovačić & Golani 2007a; Louisy 2015). Scales visible on body from reticulate pattern of pigmentation along scale edges.

Live coloration. Head and body usually reddish or orangish overall, with 5–8 indistinct transverse pale bars ( Fig. 26a ) or, more often, with just a series of about 9 small whitish saddles or markings along back and side of body more or less uniformly colored ( Fig. 26b ). The first 2 of these pale dorsal markings, located on nape and predorsal area, may be faint. No midlateral row of small black spots. The barred pattern on the body mostly appears when the fish is stressed after capture (or when anesthetized). Tubular anterior nostrils usually whitish. A whitish spot at the dorsal edge of opercle. Possibly 2 small white spots aligned vertically on upper pectoral-fin base with a darker patch in between ( Louisy 2002, 2015). Outer margin of first dorsal fin broadly white or pale gray.

Similar species. Vanneaugobius dollfusi , Corcyrogobius liechtensteini .

Habitat. Infralittoral and circalittoral species, known from a few meters to about 45 m depth on rocky or coralligenous bottoms in small cavities and crevices, under stones or in multi-layered scree, sometimes among macroalgae or on mixed sandy grounds ( Louisy 2002; Kovačić et al. 2012a & b; Glavičić et al. 2016). Specimens have also been caught from about 25–103 m depth, on coralline and stony grounds, but also on Cladophora beds or on muddy substrates (Miller 1986; Ahnelt et al. 1994; Ahnelt & Dorda 2004; Stern & Rilov 2019).

Geographic distribution. Mediterranean. Northern and eastern Mediterranean, from the Gulf of Valencia ( Ordines et al. 2019a) and Balearic Islands ( Ahnelt et al. 1994) to the Levant, Cyprus ( Kovačić & Golani 2007a) and Israel ( Stern & Rilov 2019), including southern France, at Six-Fours ( Escoubet et al. 1981) and Banyuls ( Louisy 2002), southern Italy, Gulf of Taranto ( Parenzan 1973), Strait of Sicily ( Consoli et al. 2019), Malta ( Kovačić & Schembri 2019), the Adriatic Sea ( Ahnelt et al. 1994; Kovačić et al. 2012b) and the Aegean Sea ( Koukouras et al. 1985; Miller 1986).

Figures

FIGURE 26. Live coloration of Odondebuenia balearica. A) Transverse coloration pattern with vertical pale bars, photo by M. Kovačić, Rijeka, Croatia, northern Adriatic Sea (fish photographed in a tank). B) Coloration pattern reduced to pale dorsal saddles while the rest of body lateral side is more or less uniform or mottled, photo by S. Guerrieri, Rijeka, Croatia, the Northern Adriatic Sea.