#2912 - Hypseleotris compressa - Empire Gudgeon
A friend of mine back in Sydney has been investigating what native fish live in the stormwater drains around the inner suburbs - one of those species is the Empire Gudgeon, which is an impressive name for a very ordinary-looking fish. That's because it's a bit stressed from being put in the tank. A day later he's back to this -
Unrelated to the Eurasian freshwater cyprinid Gobio gobio, which despite the binomial isn't a goby but is a gudgeon.
Hypseleotris compressa is one of the Sleeper Gobies of the family Eleotridae, a family most diverse in the Indo-Pacific tropics. They range in size from the bigmouth sleeper (Gobiomorus dormitor) of freshwater habitats in the West Atlantic, which is up to 90 cm long, to the Amazonian Leptophilypnion which are under a centimeter. Some Sleeper Gobies are important predators on islands like New Zealand and Hawaii, that lack the predatory fish families of nearby continents.
The bright colours are donned in breeding season - the male will stand gaurd over the 3000-odd eggs glued to plants, substrate, or various garbage, and the fry develop down in the estuary. Surprisingly tolerant of pollution and salinity.
Sydney, New South Wales.
