There’s a fresh new crop of newly described species of Trimma dwarf gobies from Papua New Guinea and several of them are quite the lookers. The four new species described by Gerald Allen include Trimma abyssum, T. nauagium, T. chledophilum and T. multiclitellum.
As you might expect from its name, Trimma abyssum is only known from very deep reef locales and the type specimens were collected at a depth of 107 meters, 350 feet, and subsequently there are no living images of this fish. Meanwhile, the attractive T, chledophilum is illustrated by a series of beautiful pictures of this species in the wild. The ‘Mud Pygmy Goby’ is a reddish colored with with some ornate pattern to its fins, few markings on the face, and an appearance which is generally similar to Trimma erdmanni from West Papua, but lacking the longitudinal red stripe.
The Shipwreck Pygmy goby, Trimma nauagium is harder to described in appearance with few notable colors or patterns, “Generally brown with narrow, darker-brown scale margins, grading to yellowish or white on ventral surface”. For our money, the real looker in this batch of new Trimma species is the multisaddled pygmy goby, Trimma multiclitellum, pictured below and in the header image of this story.
Trimma multiclitellum is characterized by a gorgeous pattern of alternating black and white bars which saddle most of the body in the midsection, but only extend halfway down the flanks further down the body. Thankfully this latter species was collected at the reasonable depth of 17m, about 55 feet, meaning that divers and collectors alike may encounter Trimma multiclitellum in habitats which are easily reachable with conventional SCUBA. [JSOF]
