A tiny new species of dwarfgoby has been described from Berau Bay, Atauro Island, Timor Leste. Named the Atauro Dwarfgoby, Eviota atauroensis is just half an inch long and was collected from the upper surfaces of Porites coral bommies situated in a shallow subtidal (0.5–2 m) surge zone. It is known only from Atauro Island, hence its name.
E.atauroensis is the 131st species of Eviota to be described, and it differs from its congeners by a combination of a cephalic sensory-canal pore system lacking only the IT pore (pattern 2), a dorsal/anal fin-ray formula 9/8; 16 pectoral-fin rays with 4 or 5 lower pectoral-fin rays branched; a fifth rudimentary pelvic-fin ray; a pectoral-fin base with two distinct dark spots and no additional spot immediately ventral and anterior to pair; 5 dark postanal ventral spots; and a dark spot on the caudal peduncle centered above midline.
The growing number of new goby species in recent years is the result of intensive searching for cryptobenthic fishes, obtaining underwater photographs showing live coloration, and then collecting those individuals, including tissue for genetic analysis, say the authors.
Earlier workers studying these fishes lacked these tools and had to make taxonomic decisions using only preserved specimens. As a result, some of the species, such as Eviota zebrina previously considered to have wide distributions, were found to be a complex of several species and the species described here from Timor-Leste is the result of this method.
The description has been published in the Journal of the Ocean Science Foundation and its authors, David W Greenfield, Mark V Erdmann, and Luke Tornabene are Indo-Pacific cryptobenthic goby specialists, their names appearing next to several other recently described species. The genus Eviota is one of the most speciose coral-reef fish genera in the Indo-Pacific Ocean.
Timor-Leste, or East Timor, is a Southeast Asian nation occupying half the island of Timor, and is ringed by coral reefs teeming with marine life. It lies south of Indonesia and north of Western Australia. The lesser Sunda Islands lie West of it, with Papua situated East.
CITATION
Greenfield D.W., Erdmann, M.V. & Tornabene, L. (2023) Eviota atauroensis, a new dwarfgoby (Teleostei: Gobiidae) from Timor-Leste. Journal of the Ocean Science Foundation, 40, 48-56.
