Fishes Out of Water

Biology and Ecology of Mudskippers

Zeehan Jaafar, Edward O. Murdy, Zeehan Jaafar, Edward O. Murdy

• Publisher: CRC Press
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9781351646178
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Biowissenschaften
• Subtopic: Ökologie

Mudskippers are amphibious fishes native to the Indo-West Pacific and tropical western Africa. Unlike most fishes, mudskippers emerse to forage, find mates, and defend territories. Adaptations to their morphology, physiology and behavior enable mudskippers to accommodate both aquatic and terrestrial habitats. For these traits, mudskippers have long captured the fascination of scientists, naturalists, and fish hobbyists. Some mudskipper taxa (e.g. Periophthalmodon spp., Periophthalmus spp., Boleophthalmus spp.) are readily observed on mudflats and mangrove forests during the ebb tide. Correspondingly, these conspicuous and widespread taxa are relatively well-studied. The autecology and basic biology for the remaing taxa (e.g. Apocryptodon spp. and Oxuderces spp.) are still poorly understood.

Fishes Out of Water: Biology and Ecology of Mudskippers is the first comprehensive book to synthesize published scientific information and observation on these fishes. Two dozen subject experts present thorough overviews in fifteen distinct chapters. Contents span mudskipper anatomy, distribution, systematics, physiology, ecology, and conservation. Unique adaptations to terrestriality are discussed within the context of each chapter foci.

This authoritative reference equips the reader with the basic foundation to understand mudskipper biology and ecology, while providing a framework in which emerging data are discussed. The book will be of interest to a broad range of students, researchers, and professionals in ichthyology, evolution, ecology, animal behavior, and comparative physiology.

CHAPTER 1

Taxonomy and Systematics Review

Edward O. Murdy and Zeehan Jaafar

CONTENTS

1.1 Introduction

1.2 Historical Accounts of Oxudercine Gobies

1.3 Higher Level Relationships

1.4 Sister-Group Relationships

1.5 Relationships among Genera

1.6 Species

Apocryptes Valenciennes in Cuvier and Valenciennes 1837

Apocryptes bato (Hamilton 1822)

Apocryptodon Bleeker 1874

Apocryptodon madurensis (Bleeker 1849)

Apocryptodon punctatus Tomiyama 1934

Apocryptodon wirzi Koumans 1937

Boleophthalmus Valenciennes in Cuvier and Valenciennes 1837

Boleophthalmus birdsongi Murdy 1989

Boleophthalmus boddarti (Pallas 1770)

Boleophthalmus caeruleomaculatus McCulloch and Waite 1918

Boleophthalmus dussumieri Valenciennes in Cuvier and Valenciennes 1837

Boleophthalmus pectinirostris (Linnaeus 1758)

Boleophthalmus poti Polgar, Jaafar and Konstantinidis 2013

Oxuderces Eydoux and Souleyet 1850

Oxuderces dentatus Eydoux and Souleyet 1850

Oxuderces nexipinnis (Cantor 1849)

Parapocryptes Bleeker 1874

Parapocryptes rictuosus (Valenciennes in Cuvier and Valenciennes 1837)

Parapocryptes serperaster (Richardson 1846)

Periophthalmodon Bleeker 1874

Periophthalmodon freycineti (Quoy and Gaimard 1824)

Periophthalmodon schlosseri (Pallas 1770)

Periophthalmodon septemradiatus (Hamilton 1822)

Periophthalmus Bloch and Schneider 1801

Periophthalmus argentilineatus Valenciennes in Cuvier and Valenciennes 1837

Periophthalmus barbarus (Linnaeus 1766)

Periophthalmus chrysospilos Bleeker 1853

Periophthalmus darwini Larson and Takita 2004

Periophthalmus gracilis Eggert 1935

Periophthalmus kalolo Lesson 1831

Periophthalmus magnuspinnatus Lee, Choi, and Ryu 1995

Periophthalmus malaccensis Eggert 1935

Periophthalmus minutus Eggert 1935

Periophthalmus modestus Cantor 1842

Periophthalmus novaeguineaensis Eggert 1935

Periophthalmus novemradiatus (Hamilton 1822)

Periophthalmus pusing Jaafar, Polgar, and Zamroni 2016

Periophthalmus spilotus Murdy and Takita 1999

Periophthalmus takita Jaafar and Larson 2008

Periophthalmus variabilis Eggert 1935

Periophthalmus walailakae Darumas and Tantichodok 2002

Periophthalmus waltoni Koumans 1941

Periophthalmus weberi Eggert 1935

Pseudapocryptes Bleeker 1874

Pseudapocryptes borneensis (Bleeker 1855)

Pseudapocryptes elongatus (Cuvier 1816)

Scartelaos Swainson 1839

Scartelaos cantoris (Day 1871)

Scartelaos gigas Chu and Wu in Chu, Chan, and Chen 1963

Scartelaos histophorus (Valenciennes in Cuvier and Valenciennes 1837)

Scartelaos tenuis (Day 1876)

Zappa Murdy 1989

Zappa confluentus (Roberts 1978)

Acknowledgments

References

1.1 INTRODUCTION

Oxudercine gobies, commonly known as mudskippers, are tropical and subtropical fishes naturally occurring in shallow sublittoral, littoral, and supralittoral zones of the Indo-Pacific and western Africa. Ten genera—Apocryptes, Apocryptodon, Boleophthalmus, Oxuderces, Parapocryptes, Periophthalmodon, Periophthalmus, Pseudapocryptes, Scartelaos, and Zappa—comprising 43 species, are presently recognized (Jaafar and Parenti 2016; Polgar et al. 2013; Jaafar and Larson 2008; Murdy 1989). These fishes commonly associate with soft-bottom habitats, especially mangrove forests and exposed mudflats. Species such as Periophthalmodon septemradiatus and Periophthalmus weberi also occur further upriver, in areas where salinity is negligible (Larson 2008). Within the Indo-Pacific, mudskippers are distributed longitudinally from the Red Sea/East Africa (40° E) to Samoa/Tonga (165° W) and latitudinally from Japan/South Korea (35° N) to Australia (20° S) (Polgar et al. 2014; Murdy 1989). Along the western African coast, a single species of mudskipper, Periophthalmus barbarus, is recognized and its natural distribution is from Morocco south to northern Angola (Murdy 2016).

1.2 HISTORICAL ACCOUNTS OF OXUDERCINE GOBIES

The first published account of an oxudercine goby can be traced to a Dutch explorer, de Vlamingh (1701), who reported on his voyage to the Dutch East Indies (specifically Batavia or modern day Jakarta, Indonesia) more than 400 years ago. Subsequent inclusion of oxudercine gobies in early published scientific literature also resulted from European voyages to tropical areas during which flora and fauna native to those locales were collected (Figure 1.1). These organisms, including the mudskippers, were unfamiliar to both voyagers and early European scholars; they were considered novel or at times mystical, and their accounts often featured crude figures and descriptions (Prevost 1747; Valentijn 1726; Ruysch 1718).

Figure 1.1

One of the first, if not the first, mudskipper illustration from the 1690s. (From holthuis l.B. and pietsch t.W. Les planches inédites de poissons et autres animaux marins de l’Indo-Ouest Pacifique d’Isaac Johannes Lamotius, publications scientifiques du Muséum, Muséum national d’histoire naturelle, paris, 2006. courtesy of national Museum of natural history (paris), directorate of libraries and documentation.)

The earliest oxudercine gobies were described by Carl Linnaeus: Gobius pectinirostris (=Boleophthalmus pectinirostris) in 1758 and Gobius barbarus (=Periophthalmus barbarus) in 1766. The type specimen of Gobius pectinirostris is still extant in the Linnaean collection of the Uppsala University, Zoological Museum, Sweden. Important post-Linnaean studies on the systematics of oxudercine gobies include works from prominent ichthyologists, among them, Pallas (1770), Hamilton (1822), and Eggert (1935). Bloch and Schneider (1801) coined the name Periophthalmus and designated a new species they described, Periophthalmus papilio (=Periophthalmus barbarus), as the type species for this genus.

1.3 HIGHER LEVEL RELATIONSHIPS

Ichthyologists Albert Günther, Pieter Bleeker, and David Starr Jordan were among the first to propose classification systems based on the interrelationships of goby-like fishes (see Van Tassell et al. 2011, for details). Günther (1861) erec...