Hammer Michael P, Hoese Douglass F, Bertozzi Terry
Museum & Art Gallery of the Northern Territory, PO Box 4646, Darwin, Northern Territory 0801, Australia. School of Biological Sciences, University of Adelaide, North Terrace, Adelaide, South Australia 5005, Australia; Email:
Australian Museum, 6 College Street, Sydney, New South Wales 2010, Australia; Email: unknown.
Zootaxa. 2015 Dec 11;4057(3):371-84. doi: 10.11646/zootaxa.4057.3.4.
Nesogobius is one of two goby genera with all species wholly restricted to temperate Australian waters. Described here is a new member of the genus discovered during near-shore marine and estuarine fish sampling along the central southern Australian coastline. The tiger sandgoby Nesogobius tigrinus sp. nov. is distinguished from other congeners by a combination of colouration including four prominent vertical black bars on males; morphological characters involving body scales (large), head scales (naked), body depth (slender) and gill opening (wide); meristic counts including a lack of second dorsal and anal fin spines; and mitochondrial DNA sequence divergence. The species appears to be a narrow range endemic, restricted to specific sub-tidal habitat in the unique sheltered embayments of northeast Kangaroo Island. This study forms part of ongoing investigations to more fully describe the biodiversity and conservation requirements of the regional ichthyofauna.
