Benthophiloides brauneri Beling & Iljin, 1927

Zarei, Fatah, Esmaeili, Hamid Reza, Abbasi, Keyvan, Kovačić, Marcelo, Schliewen, Ulrich K. & Stepien, Carol A., 2022, Gobies (Teleostei: Gobiidae) of the oldest and deepest Caspian Sea sub-basin: an evidence-based annotated checklist and a key for species identification, Zootaxa 5190 (2), pp. 151-193 : 164

3. Benthophiloides brauneri Beling & Iljin, 1927 , Brauner’s Tadpole Goby

Benthophibides brauneri Beling & Iljin, 1927: 309 , 319, figs. l, 2, 5–8; type locality: lower Dnieper River between Cherson (= Kherson) and Kakhovka and the southern Bug River between Novaya Odessa and Nikolaev (= Mikolev), Ukraine; types: Beling & Iljin (1927) described it from a total of 37 syntypes (ZISP 21989). ZISP 15134, from the Apsheron Peninsula, Caspian Sea, was noted by these authors but not included in the type material.

Etymology: Named for A. Brauner, who first recorded it from the Dnieper River ( Brauner 1898), but misidentified it as Gobiosoma caspium Kessler, 1877 due to their similar color patterns with dark banding ( Beling & Iljin 1927).

Distribution and habitat: Black and Caspian seas. Originally reported from the lower Dnieper and Bug rivers, and the Black Sea basin ( Beling & Iljin 1927). Absent from the Sea of Azov. Beling & Iljin (1927) identified as B. brauneri a specimen in the ZISP from the Apsheron Peninsula, near Baku ( Azerbaijan) in the Caspian Sea ( Fig. 8A ). This record was accepted by Berg (1949). There seem to be no further records of this species from the Caspian Sea and its occurrence in the basin merits further investigation. There is a possibility that the locality attributed to the Apsheron specimen is erroneous. It has been recorded in fresh to slightly brackish (oligohaline) waters, typically at 5–15 m depth ( Pinchuk & Miller 2004b).

IUCN: DD ( Freyhof & Kottelat 2008b).

Figures

FIGURE 8. Distribution of (A) Anatirostrum profundorum, Babka gymnotrachelus, Benthophiloides brauneri, Benthophiloides turcomanus, and Benthophilus pinchuki, (B) Benthophilus baeri, and (C) Benthophilus casachicus, Benthophilus ctenolepidus, Benthophilus leptocephalus, and Benthophilus persicus.