Grass goby
| Grass goby | ||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Grass goby ( Zosterisessor ophiocephalus ) |
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| Systematics | ||||||||||||
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| Scientific name of the genus | ||||||||||||
| Zosterisessor | ||||||||||||
| Whitley , 1935 | ||||||||||||
| Scientific name of the species | ||||||||||||
| Zosterisessor ophiocephalus | ||||||||||||
| ( Pallas , 1814) |
The grass goby ( Zosterisessor Ophiocephalus ) is a species of fish in the family of gobies , one of the richest families of marine fishes. Both the German and the scientific naming refer to the preference of this goby for seagrass of the genus Zostera as a habitat. It lives in the brackish water of estuaries and lagoons on mud and seagrass beds in European seas on the shores of the Mediterranean , the Azov and Black Seas and occurs at depths of up to 30 m.
features
The gobies are 18 to 22, at most up to 25 cm long and have an elongated, low body. The body height is included 6½ times in the total length. The head is long and 4½ times included in the total length. The eye relief corresponds to the eye diameter. The neck and abdominal region are scaly, the gill cover is scaly or only scaly on the upper edge. The tail fin stalk is longer than it is high. The grass goby is greenish-brown in color and shows wavy transverse bands in the upper half of the body and dark spots along the middle of the side. There is a black patch at the base of the tail fin. The sides of the head and the base of the pectoral fin are spotted white. The unpaired fins and the pectoral fins show dark rows of dots.
- Fin formula : dorsal 1 VI, dorsal 2 I / (13) 14–15 (16), anal I / (11) 12–15 (16).
- Scale formula : mLR 51–70.
The pectoral fins are large and their upper rays are often elongated like a thread. The pelvic fins are small, rounded and the funnel membrane typical of gobies is only slightly developed.
Reproduction
Grass gobies reproduce from March to May. To do this, the male builds a nest between dense stands of plants and spawns there one after the other with 5 to 10 females. A nest can contain between 150,000 and 300,000 eggs.
use
Grass gobies are mostly fished with fish traps, mainly in the Black Sea, Sywasch and other lagoons (e.g. in the Venice lagoon near Chioggia ).
literature
- Fritz Terofal: Steinbach's natural guide, freshwater fish. Ulmer, Stuttgart 2003, ISBN 3-80014-296-1
Web links
- Grass goby on Fishbase.org (English)
- Zosterisessor ophiocephalus in the Red List of Threatened Species of the IUCN 2013.2. Listed by: World Conservation Monitoring Center, 1996. Retrieved February 9, 2014.