Blue stripe goby
| Blue stripe goby | ||||||||||||
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Blue striped gobies, underwater shot near San Clemente Island . |
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| Lythrypnus dalli | ||||||||||||
| Gilbert , 1890 |
The blue-striped goby ( Lythrypnus dalli ) or Catalina goby is a small marine fish found in the eastern Pacific, from Morro Bay to the Gulf of California and west to Guadalupe . It was first described from Santa Catalina Island off Los Angeles .
features
The fish are only 6.5 centimeters long and are strikingly bright red in color. Four to nine iridescent blue horizontal stripes extend over the head and body. They are narrower on the back. The first dorsal fin is high, especially in the males.
Way of life
The fish inhabit rocky bottoms and are quite open, but when threatened they retreat into crevices, holes or between the spines of sea urchins . They are territory-forming . The females lay their spawn in empty mussel shells. The clutch is then guarded by the male. Blue striped gobies prefer cool water of 15 to 18 ° C, only stay in shallow water in winter and migrate to a depth of more than 50 meters in summer. They feed mainly on small crustaceans . You can often see them together with the similarly colored but shy Lythrypnus zebra .
literature
- Hans A. Baensch , Helmut Debelius : Mergus sea water atlas. Volume 1, Mergus-Verlag, Melle, ISBN 3-88244-110-0 .
- William N. Eschmeyer, Earl S. Herald, Howard Hamann: A field guide to Pacific Coast Fishes of North America. From the Gulf of Alaska to Baja California (= Peterson Field Guides. 28). Houghton Mifflin, Boston, Mass. 1983, ISBN 0-395-33188-9 .
Web links
- Blue striped goby on Fishbase.org (English)
- Lythrypnus dalli inthe IUCN Red List of Threatened Species 2013.2. Posted by: Van Tassell, J., Lea, R. & Bearez, P., 2007. Retrieved February 9, 2014.