Lesueurigobius friesii ( Malm, 1874 )

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 : 68

Lesueurigobius friesii ( Malm, 1874) ( Fig. 17 )—Fries’s Goby

Gobius friesii Malm, 1874: 383 ; type locality: Sweden, Gullmarfjord , Lysekil .

Size. Maximum size 10 cm total length (Miller 1986).

Morphology. D VI + I,13–16; A I,12–15; P 18–19 (Miller 1986). Moderately large goby with subcylindrical body, laterally compressed towards caudal fin, head moderately large. Snout large and blunt. Eyes dorsolateral, interorbital space narrow. Caudal peduncle deep, but lower than body depth. Dorsal fins of similar height, the first dorsal fin may be slightly higher, with more or less rounded edge and no elongate spines. Caudal fin slightly pointed, almost rounded. Predorsal area and nape scaled (Miller 1986). Scales large, visible on body and usually also on predorsal area.

Live coloration. Body with 2 longitudinal rows of gray-brown to orange-brown spots, more or less overlaid with yellow or orange, one row along back and another along lateral midline; smaller spots of the same color (and not lines) on head ( Fig. 17 ). Both dorsal fins and upper half of caudal fin with yellow to orange spots; second dorsal-fin edge yellow to orange with a blue to whitish submarginal band ( Moen & Svensen 2004; Louisy 2015).

Similar species. Lesueurigobius sanzi , L. suerii , Thorogobius macrolepis .

Habitat. Infralittoral and circalittoral to bathyal species, known from 10–440 m on soft bottoms and seagrass meadows ( Goren et al. 2019; Patzner 2021).

Geographic distribution. Mediterranean and Atlantic Ocean: present in the Atlantic from Mauritania to Norway and along north Mediterranean coast from Gibraltar to the Sea of Marmara, also along Turkish coast south to Levant (Miller 1986; Goren et al. 2019).

Figures

FIGURE 17. Live coloration in its natural habitat of Lesueurigobius friesii. Photo by R. Svensen, Stavanger, Norway.