Grass Goby
Encyclopedia
The grass goby, Zosterisessor ophiocephalus, is a species of fish
in the Gobiidae family. It is a Mediterranean immigrant in the Black Sea
fauna. Its genus
Zosterisessor is monotypic
.
. The mandibula are protrusive, and the skin soft, with mucous. The coloration is green-brown, patterned with merging brown spots. The cheeks have round light spots. The dorsal, caudal, and pectoral fins have longitudinal brown stripes on a light background; the anal and abdominal sucker
are dark.
s of Mediterranean basin
, also in the nearest part of the Atlantic Ocean
up to Canary Islands
. Especially numerous in the northern Adriatic Sea
, Venetian Lagoon
, Sète Lagoon
(France
). Mediterranean immigrant in the Black Sea
fauna. In the Black Sea it is near all coasts, especially in lagoon
s and estuaries
of the north-western Black Sea, Varna and Burgas Bay
s, Sea of Azov
, Sivash. Mentioned for the Dniester
River delta
.
s after which they start to eat fish. In Tuzly's Lagoons
this means they first feed on gammarids Gammarus lacustris
(94%), and Idotea balthica
(6%) followed by fish like the big-scale sand smelt (30%) and gobies
(36%). Shrimp
Palaemon adspersus
play an important role in the diet of the Grass Goby as well.
are known from the grass goby near the Crimea
n coasts. The acanthocephalans Acanthocephaloides propinquus are mos numerous. In the north-western Black Sea this fish has 13 parasite species
. Except the montioned Acanthocephaloides propinquus, another acanthocephalan, Telosentis exiguus
, is very numerous. Both acanthocephalans are Mediterranean immigrants such as their host
, the grass goby. Also, the Ponto-Caspian cestodes Proteocephalus gobiorum and monogenea
ns Gyrodactylus proterorhini were very numerous. In the Budaki Lagoon
the grass goby is a host
of larvae
of epizootic
nematode
Streptocara crassicauda.
it is used for food by the harbour porpoise
.
The grass goby is commercial fish in the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov
. It is fish in the Molochnyi Estuary, Tuzly's Lagoons
, and in the Sivash.
Fish
Fish are a paraphyletic group of organisms that consist of all gill-bearing aquatic vertebrate animals that lack limbs with digits. Included in this definition are the living hagfish, lampreys, and cartilaginous and bony fish, as well as various extinct related groups...
in the Gobiidae family. It is a Mediterranean immigrant in the Black Sea
Black Sea
The Black Sea is bounded by Europe, Anatolia and the Caucasus and is ultimately connected to the Atlantic Ocean via the Mediterranean and the Aegean seas and various straits. The Bosphorus strait connects it to the Sea of Marmara, and the strait of the Dardanelles connects that sea to the Aegean...
fauna. Its genus
Genus
In biology, a genus is a low-level taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of living and fossil organisms, which is an example of definition by genus and differentia...
Zosterisessor is monotypic
Monotypic
In biology, a monotypic taxon is a taxonomic group with only one biological type. The term's usage differs slightly between botany and zoology. The term monotypic has a separate use in conservation biology, monotypic habitat, regarding species habitat conversion eliminating biodiversity and...
.
Characteristic
Grass Gobies can grow up to 25 cm long. The head crown, nape, throat, belly and base of the pectoral fins are covered by cycloid scalesand the Gill covers are nacked. The abdominal sucker has no blades and does not reach the anusAnus
The anus is an opening at the opposite end of an animal's digestive tract from the mouth. Its function is to control the expulsion of feces, unwanted semi-solid matter produced during digestion, which, depending on the type of animal, may be one or more of: matter which the animal cannot digest,...
. The mandibula are protrusive, and the skin soft, with mucous. The coloration is green-brown, patterned with merging brown spots. The cheeks have round light spots. The dorsal, caudal, and pectoral fins have longitudinal brown stripes on a light background; the anal and abdominal sucker
Suction cup
A suction cup, also sometimes known as a sucker is an object that uses negative fluid pressure of air or water to adhere to nonporous surfaces. They exist both as artificially created devices, and as anatomical traits of some animals such as octopi and squid.The working face of the suction cup has...
are dark.
Range
Widespread in coastal waters of all seaSea
A sea generally refers to a large body of salt water, but the term is used in other contexts as well. Most commonly, it means a large expanse of saline water connected with an ocean, and is commonly used as a synonym for ocean...
s of Mediterranean basin
Mediterranean Basin
In biogeography, the Mediterranean Basin refers to the lands around the Mediterranean Sea that have a Mediterranean climate, with mild, rainy winters and hot, dry summers, which supports characteristic Mediterranean forests, woodlands, and scrub vegetation...
, also in the nearest part of the Atlantic Ocean
Atlantic Ocean
The Atlantic Ocean is the second-largest of the world's oceanic divisions. With a total area of about , it covers approximately 20% of the Earth's surface and about 26% of its water surface area...
up to Canary Islands
Canary Islands
The Canary Islands , also known as the Canaries , is a Spanish archipelago located just off the northwest coast of mainland Africa, 100 km west of the border between Morocco and the Western Sahara. The Canaries are a Spanish autonomous community and an outermost region of the European Union...
. Especially numerous in the northern Adriatic Sea
Adriatic Sea
The Adriatic Sea is a body of water separating the Italian Peninsula from the Balkan peninsula, and the system of the Apennine Mountains from that of the Dinaric Alps and adjacent ranges...
, Venetian Lagoon
Venetian Lagoon
The Venetian Lagoon is the enclosed bay of the Adriatic Sea in which the city of Venice is situated. Its name in the Venetian language, Laguna Veneta— cognate of Latin lacus, "lake"— has provided the international name for an enclosed, shallow embayment of saltwater, a lagoon.The Venetian Lagoon...
, Sète Lagoon
Étang de Thau
Étang de Thau or Bassin de Thau is the largest of a string of étangs that stretch along the Languedoc-Roussillon, French coast from the Rhône River to the foothills of the Pyrenees which form the border to Spain. It is the second largest lake in France.-Description:It is about 21 km long...
(France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
). Mediterranean immigrant in the Black Sea
Black Sea
The Black Sea is bounded by Europe, Anatolia and the Caucasus and is ultimately connected to the Atlantic Ocean via the Mediterranean and the Aegean seas and various straits. The Bosphorus strait connects it to the Sea of Marmara, and the strait of the Dardanelles connects that sea to the Aegean...
fauna. In the Black Sea it is near all coasts, especially in lagoon
Lagoon
A lagoon is a body of shallow sea water or brackish water separated from the sea by some form of barrier. The EU's habitat directive defines lagoons as "expanses of shallow coastal salt water, of varying salinity or water volume, wholly or partially separated from the sea by sand banks or shingle,...
s and estuaries
Estuary
An estuary is a partly enclosed coastal body of water with one or more rivers or streams flowing into it, and with a free connection to the open sea....
of the north-western Black Sea, Varna and Burgas Bay
Burgas Bay
Burgas Bay is the largest bay of the Bulgarian Black Sea Coast and one of the largest ones in the Black Sea. It is 41 km at its widest and 25 m at its deepest, reaching 31 km at its greatest innermost extent, approximately where the Bulgarian city and major port of Burgas is located. Other towns...
s, Sea of Azov
Sea of Azov
The Sea of Azov , known in Classical Antiquity as Lake Maeotis, is a sea on the south of Eastern Europe. It is linked by the narrow Strait of Kerch to the Black Sea to the south and is bounded on the north by Ukraine mainland, on the east by Russia, and on the west by the Ukraine's Crimean...
, Sivash. Mentioned for the Dniester
Dniester
The Dniester is a river in Eastern Europe. It runs through Ukraine and Moldova and separates most of Moldova's territory from the breakaway de facto state of Transnistria.-Names:...
River delta
River delta
A delta is a landform that is formed at the mouth of a river where that river flows into an ocean, sea, estuary, lake, reservoir, flat arid area, or another river. Deltas are formed from the deposition of the sediment carried by the river as the flow leaves the mouth of the river...
.
Diet
Up until the age of two years Grass Gobies feed only on crustaceanCrustacean
Crustaceans form a very large group of arthropods, usually treated as a subphylum, which includes such familiar animals as crabs, lobsters, crayfish, shrimp, krill and barnacles. The 50,000 described species range in size from Stygotantulus stocki at , to the Japanese spider crab with a leg span...
s after which they start to eat fish. In Tuzly's Lagoons
Tuzly's Lagoons
Tuzly's Lagoons is a group of marine lagoons in southern Bessarabia , Ukraine. The lagoons are included to the Tuzly's Lagoon National Park, organised on January 1, 2010...
this means they first feed on gammarids Gammarus lacustris
Gammarus lacustris
Gammarus lacustris is an aquatic amphipod.-Description:G. lacustris is semi-transparent and lacks a webbed tail. It may be colorless, brown, reddish or bluish in color, depending on the local environment. It has seven abdominal segments, a fused cephalothorax, and two pairs of antennae. Unlike...
(94%), and Idotea balthica
Idotea balthica
Idotea balthica, is a marine isopod which lives on seaweed on rocky shores along the European coastlines. You can find it in subtidal zone, feeding on algae.-Distribution:...
(6%) followed by fish like the big-scale sand smelt (30%) and gobies
Goby
The gobies form the family Gobiidae, which is one of the largest families of fish, with more than 2,000 species in more than 200 genera. Most are relatively small, typically less than 10 cm in length...
(36%). Shrimp
Shrimp
Shrimp are swimming, decapod crustaceans classified in the infraorder Caridea, found widely around the world in both fresh and salt water. Adult shrimp are filter feeding benthic animals living close to the bottom. They can live in schools and can swim rapidly backwards. Shrimp are an important...
Palaemon adspersus
Palaemon adspersus
Palaemon adspersus is a species of shrimp that is frequent in the Baltic Sea, and is the subject of fisheries in Denmark. It is up to long, and lives in Zostera beds.-Description:...
play an important role in the diet of the Grass Goby as well.
Parasites
27 parasite speciesSpecies
In biology, a species is one of the basic units of biological classification and a taxonomic rank. A species is often defined as a group of organisms capable of interbreeding and producing fertile offspring. While in many cases this definition is adequate, more precise or differing measures are...
are known from the grass goby near the Crimea
Crimea
Crimea , or the Autonomous Republic of Crimea , is a sub-national unit, an autonomous republic, of Ukraine. It is located on the northern coast of the Black Sea, occupying a peninsula of the same name...
n coasts. The acanthocephalans Acanthocephaloides propinquus are mos numerous. In the north-western Black Sea this fish has 13 parasite species
Species
In biology, a species is one of the basic units of biological classification and a taxonomic rank. A species is often defined as a group of organisms capable of interbreeding and producing fertile offspring. While in many cases this definition is adequate, more precise or differing measures are...
. Except the montioned Acanthocephaloides propinquus, another acanthocephalan, Telosentis exiguus
Telosentis exiguus
Telosentis exiguus is a widspread intestinal parasitic worm. Its hosts are marine and brackish water fish of the Mediterranean basin.-Characteristics:...
, is very numerous. Both acanthocephalans are Mediterranean immigrants such as their host
Host (biology)
In biology, a host is an organism that harbors a parasite, or a mutual or commensal symbiont, typically providing nourishment and shelter. In botany, a host plant is one that supplies food resources and substrate for certain insects or other fauna...
, the grass goby. Also, the Ponto-Caspian cestodes Proteocephalus gobiorum and monogenea
Monogenea
Monogenea are a group of largely ectoparasitic members of the flatworm phylum Platyhelminthes, class Monogenea.-Characteristics:Monogenea are very small parasitic flatworms mainly found on skin or gills of fish....
ns Gyrodactylus proterorhini were very numerous. In the Budaki Lagoon
Budaki Lagoon
Budaki, or Budaksky Lagoon is a Black Sea lagoon in Bessarabia, southern Ukraine. Located in 18 km from the city of Bilhorod-Dnistrovskyi. The lagoon is separated from the Black Sea by the 80–200 m wide sandbar...
the grass goby is a host
Host (biology)
In biology, a host is an organism that harbors a parasite, or a mutual or commensal symbiont, typically providing nourishment and shelter. In botany, a host plant is one that supplies food resources and substrate for certain insects or other fauna...
of larvae
Larvae
In Roman mythology, lemures were shades or spirits of the restless or malignant dead, and are probably cognate with an extended sense of larvae as disturbing or frightening...
of epizootic
Epizootic
In epizoology, an epizootic is a disease that appears as new cases in a given animal population, during a given period, at a rate that substantially exceeds what is "expected" based on recent experience . Epidemic is the analogous term applied to human populations...
nematode
Nematode
The nematodes or roundworms are the most diverse phylum of pseudocoelomates, and one of the most diverse of all animals. Nematode species are very difficult to distinguish; over 28,000 have been described, of which over 16,000 are parasitic. It has been estimated that the total number of nematode...
Streptocara crassicauda.
Importance
It is a dietary item for some commercial fishes, such as the toad goby. In the Sea of AzovSea of Azov
The Sea of Azov , known in Classical Antiquity as Lake Maeotis, is a sea on the south of Eastern Europe. It is linked by the narrow Strait of Kerch to the Black Sea to the south and is bounded on the north by Ukraine mainland, on the east by Russia, and on the west by the Ukraine's Crimean...
it is used for food by the harbour porpoise
Harbour Porpoise
The harbour porpoise is one of six species of porpoise. It is one of the smallest marine mammals. As its name implies, it stays close to coastal areas or river estuaries, and as such, is the most familiar porpoise to whale watchers. This porpoise often ventures up rivers, and has been seen...
.
The grass goby is commercial fish in the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov
Sea of Azov
The Sea of Azov , known in Classical Antiquity as Lake Maeotis, is a sea on the south of Eastern Europe. It is linked by the narrow Strait of Kerch to the Black Sea to the south and is bounded on the north by Ukraine mainland, on the east by Russia, and on the west by the Ukraine's Crimean...
. It is fish in the Molochnyi Estuary, Tuzly's Lagoons
Tuzly's Lagoons
Tuzly's Lagoons is a group of marine lagoons in southern Bessarabia , Ukraine. The lagoons are included to the Tuzly's Lagoon National Park, organised on January 1, 2010...
, and in the Sivash.