Aphia minuta ( Risso, 1810 )

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 : 42

Aphia minuta ( Risso, 1810) ( Fig. 31 )—Transparent Goby

Atherina minuta Risso, 1810: 340 ; type locality: northwestern Mediterranean Sea , France, Nice .

Size. Maximum known size 5.8 cm total length ( La Mesa et al. 2005).

Morphology. D IV–VI + I,11–13; A I,11–15; P 15–19. Pedomorphic habitus. Body laterally compressed. Eyes lateral, interorbital wide. Mouth superior, oblique, tip of lower jaw at the horizontal level of pupil. Caudal peduncle slender in females, deeper in males, lower than body height. Dorsal fins distant from each other, with a broad interdorsal space. The first dorsal fin small, roughly of trapezoid or parallelogram shape. Second dorsal fin high, with moderately short base and ray lengths decreasing posteriorly giving the fin triangular appearance, at least in females. Pelvic disc complete (Miller 1986; Patzner 2021). Caudal fin truncate to slightly emarginate. Scales present, but not usually visible on photographs.

Live coloration. Body translucent, usually with a row of melanophores along anal-fin base, no triangular black spot at the base of caudal fin and no well-defined black spots laterally on abdomen ( Fig. 31 ).

Similar species. Crystallogobius linearis .

Habitat. Pelagic and neritic species, widely distributed in inshore and estuarine waters from the surface to 80–100 m depth over sand, mud, sea-weed ( Cystoseira spp. ) and over seagrasses ( Zostera marina and Posidonia oceanica ) ( La Mesa et al. 2005).

Geographic distribution. The northeastern Atlantic, from the Strait of Gibraltar to the western Baltic and the coasts of Norway, as well as in the Mediterranean, including the Adriatic Sea, Black Sea and Azov Sea ( La Mesa et al. 2005; Boltachev & Karpova 2017).

Figures

FIGURE 31. Live coloration in its natural habitat of Aphia minuta. Photo by S. Guerrieri, Tuscany, Italy.