Seems to be a Sicydium sp. male in breeding coloration. Anyone knowing more?
location ... Caribbean, Dominican Republic, Province Barahona, swimming ponds (freshwater) at the beach of San Rafael
approximate coordinates
18°01'47.5"N 71°08'13.6"W
18.029847, -71.137115
The genus Sicydium of the Dominican Republic was revised by Watson (2000) -- see attached file. For the identification, you need details like the dentition, scales on the belly and lateral-line scale rows which are not visible in your image.
My guess from seeing thousands of them in Dominica W.I. is that this is what I've called Sicydium punctatum Perugia (sensu Brockmann 1965), and it appears to be a male in territorial or breeding colours. Brockmann 1965 is a MSc thesis out of Tallahassee, and not easily obtainable, but provided a lot of clarity. You can find the full reference via my papers (1995 and others) at www.ucs.mun.ca/~kbell/pubs. When science becomes over-competitive it begins to cease to be science. Note that Watson 2000 (cited by Fricke) gives Brockmann a dismissive mention, excessively short shrift I think. A problem, it has seemed to me, is that some workers place a value on identifying new species. Some new species have been identified on the basis of less than five specimens, and some early stages have been described as new species. Additionally, meristics are not a simple diagnostic: it is the discontinuities in them that identifies a diagnostic. Brockmann did that very well, when many previous workers hadn't (and possibly many subsequent didn't). Brockmann also pointed out that S. plumieri was, due to the lack of type specimens and the reliance on only a drawing by Père Plumier, a nomen nudum. Some systematists may wish to correct me (I welcome that) but as I understand it nomen nudum refers to a deficiency that is essentially uncorrectable and that use of the name subsequently has a great potential to assist confusion more than it assists insight. So I'm puzzled to not see this issue acknowledged in Watson (2000). I welcome, of course, enlightenment. So, I recommend finding a copy of Brockmann (1965): Brockmann, F.W. 1965. A taxonomic study of the Panamanian freshwater gobies of the genera Awaous and Sisydium. M.S. thesis, Florida State University, Tallahassee, Fla. 73 p. You can probably obtain it via interlibrary loans.
Gobius plumieri Bloch [ex Plumier] 1786 is certainly not a nomen nudum, as its description fulfills the required criteria of availability. Originally, there were indeed problems with the species identification, which were removed by a neotype designation of Watson (2000: 14). Therefore, Sicydium plumieri is an available and valid name which has been used by numerous authors.
Watson's neotype designation for Gobius plumieri, of course, changed the situation; therefore Brockmann's (1965), unpublished, analysis does no longer represent the actual classification of sicydiine gobies in the region.
You may consult the Catalog of Fishes online for information on the actual status of Gobius plumieri:
http://researcharchive.calacademy.org/research/ichthyology/catalog/fishcatmain.asp
- Badges
- Science method
- Similar topics
- Biological Science
- Ecology