Diversity of Gobies (Actinopterygii, Gobiiformes) in the Rupnarayan River, West Bengal, India
Abstract
A total of 16 species under 13 genera in 4 families of Gobiiformes have been recorded from the Rupnarayan river. Of these Bostrychus sinensis is being reported for the first time from Indian mainland and Bathygobius ostreicola is being recorded for the first time from West Bengal. Four species viz., Acentrogobius viridipunctatus, Butis butis, Taenoides buchanani and Taenioides cirratus are being reported for the first time from Purba Medinipur district and 14 species viz., Acentrogobius viridipunctatus, Apocryptes bato, Bathygobius ostreicola, Boleophthalmus boddarti, Bostrychus sinensis, Butis butis, Butis koilomatodon, Eleotris fusca, Eleotris melanosoma, Odontamblyopus rubicundus, Periophthalmus modestus, Pseudapocryptes elongatus, Taenoides buchanani and Taenioides cirratus are being reported for the first time from Rupnarayan river. Periopthalmus weberi appears to have gone locally extinct in this River.
Introduction
Gobiiformes, the gobies and their relatives, is one of the world's most varied vertebrate lineages with over 2200 species distributed under more than 200 genera (Nelson et al., 2016). Gobies are found in tropical and subtropical waters, especially on coral reefs and estuaries and only 10% of which are found in freshwater (Helfman et al., 2009). Although some species are consumed by man mostly these are prey of economically valuable fish species. Some species are also valuable as ornamental fish (Patzner et al., 2012). Chatterjee and Mishra (2012) reported 174 gobioid species under 69 genera from India of which 45 species under 37 genera are found in Sundarbans of West Bengal (Chatterjee et al., 2013) and 23 species have been recorded so far from Purba Medinipur district (Jayram, 1981; Chatterjee et al., 2000; Yennawar et al., 2015, 2017; Payra et al., 2018; Hossain et al., 2019; Pahari et al., 2020; Khan and Mandal, 2024). Yennawar et al. (2017) and Chatterjee et al. (2000) recorded 14 and 9 species of gobies respectively from the coastal region of Digha, Purba Medinipur district, whereas, Payra et al. (2018) and Khan and Mandal (2024) each have reported 4 species of gobies from Egra and Ramnagar of this district. While Hossin et al. (2019) recorded Butis koilomatodon from Sankarpur, Sit et al. (2020) recorded Glossogobius giuris and Stigmatogobius sadanundio from Purba Medinipur district. River Rupnarayan, however, has remained rather unexplored in this regard. Gobiids recorded so far from this river are Periopthalmus weberi, G. guiris and S. sadanundio as reported by Jayram (1981), Ghorai (2018) and Pahari et al. (2020) respectively. Under such backdrop the present study on the diversity of order Gobiiformes of the Rupnarayan River, which constitutes the eastern border of Purba Medinipur district, was under taken.
Source : Diversity of Gobies (Actinopterygii, Gobiiformes) in the Rupnarayan River, West Bengal, India | InformativeBD
