Lotilia klausewitzi is the name of a new species of nano goby from the West Pacific Ocean that was just described and differentiated from Lotilia graciliosa which is now officially recognized as coming only from the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean. In a way Lotilia klausewitzi is not a “new” species to us since the “Lotilia graciliosa” that we’ve previously seen in the marine aquarium trade all came from Northern Philippines, and therefore were the same species as the newly described Lotilia klausewitzi. The two fish belonging to the genus Lotilia are allopatric species which means that they do not co-exist or have overlapping ranges and they look pretty different too.
Both species of Lotilia are the same basic black body coloration with a white cap on the dorsal part of the head that we are familiar with, but the “true” Lotilia graciliosa has a much more vivid ocellus or eye-spot in the dorsal fin which is bordered in an orange line. By contrast, the Lotilia klausewitzi which we’ve seen from the Philippines has a much smaller and less pronounced little black spot instead of an ocellus like in Indian Ocean and Red Sea specimens.
Lotilia klausewitzi is still a drop-dead gorgeous and stunning nano reef fish, and we haven’t seen too many come in for a little while but something tells us that now that we know that there’s a “better” Lotilia out there with a brilliant dorsal eye-spot, collectors in Sri Lanka and Maldives will start looking around for the true Lotilia graciliosa. Lotilia klausewitzi was described Shibukawa et. al. in the latest edition of Zootaxa: Review of the shrimp-associated goby genus Lotilia (Actinopterygii: Perciformes: Gobiidae), with description of a new species from the West Pacific.
