GOBY

by

CARL L. HUBBS

Reprinted from Encyclopaedia Britannica C)1963 by ENCYCLOPAEDIA BRITANNICA, INC. 1)04, • to ) . 459

GOBY, generally, any one of a numerous group—the Gobioidei ized by having a few (usually six) flexible spines in the separate —of largely marine and warm-water spiny-rayed , character- first dorsal fin; the pelvic fins are either set close together (in the family Eleotridae, known as "sleepers") or united into a suck- ing disc (in the , or gobies proper). Most of the several hundred known range in length from one to four inches, but a few of the sleepers exceed one foot; some, like Pandaka pygmaea of the Philippines, are the smallest known vertebrates, only about one-half inch long. Male gobies guard encapsulated oval eggs, which are attached at one end by short adhesive threads, in a layer on discarded shells or in crevices. Most gobies are bot- tom dwellers; many, e.g., species, are limited to the edge of tropical shores. Well-known species include: a ten-inch rock-pool inhabiting species of Europe, Gobius capito; the mudskippers (Periophthal- mus), bulging-eyed little fishes that inhabit mud flats around the Indian ocean and the East Indian region, usually resting with the front parts out of water; the very hardy, burrow-inhabiting mud- sucker, or long-jawed goby (Gillichthys mirabilis), the chief bait of southern California, with the upper jaw prolonged in the adult to beyond the gill opening; and a blind, pink species, Typhlo- gobius calif orniensis, which lives with a blind shrimp (a Callianassa . W. N. TAVOLGA species) in burrows under stones between tide marks along the MALE FRILLFIN GOBY (BATHYGOBIUS SOPORATOR) GUARDING EGGS AT- shores of southern California. See also FISHES: Sculpin-Like TACHED TO AN EMPTY BIVALVE SHELL Fishes and Gobies. (C. L. Hs.)

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