We knew it wouldn’t be long and it barely took a week into the new year for us to get a new species of nano goby to share. Trimma hamartium is the first new species of tropical marine fish of 2018 and unsurprisingly it’s gem of a tiny fish from the Southwest Islands of Palau.
The ‘Mistaken Pygmy Goby’ is quite an attractive new species, especially the males with their long filamented fins, yellow body and very attractive facial markings. The new Trimma hamartium was collected at a depth between 75 and 110 feet deep, usually in and around reef walls, steep slopes and small caves, all crowded with corals.
The common name of Mistaken Pygmy Goby comes from the confusion between this and another yellowish goby species, Trimma preclarum which has some overlap in distribution in the southwest Pacific Ocean. This year’s newest species of pygmy goby is described by Dr. Richard Winterbottom and published in the latest volume of ZooTaxa.
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