ISSN: 0001-5113 ACTA ADRIAT., UDC: 597.5 (262.3) AADRAY 51(1): 55 - 65, 2010 A modified key for rapid determination of Blennioidea (Pisces: Perciformes) in the Adriatic Sea martina OrlandO-BOnaca * and lovrenc lipej Marine Biology Station, National Institute of Biology, Fornače 41,6330 Piran, Slovenia * Corresponding author, e-mail:
[email protected] The identification key covers 20 species of Blennioidea presently known in the Adriatic Sea, and one additional species known to occur in freshwaters. The standard format of a dichotomous bracket key was used. The key was developed in order to make the process of identification of Adriatic blennioids clear, simple and non-destructive, thus providing a small number of easily verifiable characters instead of proposing overlapping or highly variable characters. The key is also aimed at in-the-lab-training of SCUBA observers, since many biases may influence the accuracy and precision of blennioid identification when using non-destructive visual census techniques. Key words: Blennioidea, identification key, non-destructive, main characters, adriatic Sea INTRODUCTION (1968) for the venice area, kOlOmBatović (1892) and pallaOrO (1989) for the middle eastern Blennies and their relatives are abundant adriatic, pallaOrO & ŠTevčić (1989) for the representatives of the coastal fish community in whole adriatic (which already listed 21 species the mediterranean and other seas. To date, one of Blennioidea), and by lipej & richTer (1999) clinid (genus Clinitrachus), three tripterygiids for Slovenian coastal waters. The presence of (genus Tripterygion), and 17 blenniids (gen- one species in the adriatic Sea is still question- era Aidablennius, Blennius, Coryphoblennius, able since the specimen of Salaria basilisca Lipophrys, Parablennius, Paralipophrys and captured near piran in 1874, and deposited in Salaria) are known to inhabit the adriatic Sea the natural history museum of vienna (dulčić (Table 1) (lipej et al., 2008).