Gobius fallax Sarato, 1889

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 : 56

Gobius fallax Sarato, 1889 ( Fig. 39 )—Sarato’s Goby

Gobius fallax Sarato, 1889: 506 , type locality: northwestern Mediterranean Sea , France, Nice.

Size. Known adult size about 9 cm total length.

Morphology. D VI + I,14–16; A I,13–15; P 18. Medium-sized goby with moderately elongate body, large head, snout moderately steep and shorter than eye diameter. Body often held slightly arched. Caudal peduncle deep, but lower than body depth. Dorsal fins of similar height, first dorsal fin may be slightly higher, with more or less rounded margin and no elongate spines. Caudal fin rounded. Scales present on body and on predorsal area, usually visible on photographs on body.

Live coloration. Body light gray or whitish, usually with blue or yellow reflections on the back ( Fig. 39 ). Yellow hues sometimes more visible on the head. Head and body covered with longitudinal lines of well-defined brown or dark brown dots, those along midline slightly paler ( Fig. 39 ). Dots are broadest along the lateral midline but always remain separated. The eyes have brown stripes radiating from the pupil to the orbital rim, 2 of them forming a broad horizontal stripe across the pupil. Dark curved mark on the upper iris on the eye connects longitudinally other marks ( Fig. 39b ). Lower lip with a median W-shaped mark. A well-defined dark dot on posterior angle of mouth ( Fig. 39b ). Upper lip with brown marks in addition to the dot on the corner of the mouth ( Fig. 39b ). Snout with M-shaped line and an oblique preorbital bar (Herler et al. 2005; Renoult et al. 2022).

Similar species. Gobius bucchichi , G. incognitus , G. xanthocephalus , G. auratus morph 2.

Habitat. Infralittoral species, known from 1–32 m depth on mixed sandy-rocky habitats, rock crevices or stones nearby soft bottom, sometimes covered with seagrass (Herler & Patzner 2005; Louisy 2015).

Geographic distribution. Mediterranean. Recorded from many places from the Balearic Islands to Turkey ( Fricke et al. 2007), including Croatia ( Kovačić & Patzner 2011), Crete (Kovačić et al. 2011), Cyprus ( Kovačić & Golani 2007a) and Libya ( Al-Hassan & El-Silini 1999). Also recorded in Gran Canaria, Atlantic ( Dooley et al. 1985), but this needs to be confirmed because of taxonomic progress on the Gobius auratus complex since this record.

Figures

FIGURE 39. Live coloration in its natural habitat of Gobius fallax. B) Upper lip with brown mark in addition to the dot on the corner of the mouth; dark curved mark on the upper border of the eye connects longitudinally other marks. Photo by R. Pillon, Hvar Island, Croatia, Central Adriatic Sea.