Neogobius is a genus of goby native to Black Sea and the Caspian Sea basins. It is part of the broader Benthophilinae subfamily which is also endemic to the same region. Nevertheless, two Neogobius species have recently turned out to be highly invasive and spread across Europe and even to the Great Lakes of North America.

Neogobius
Round Goby (N. melanostomus)
Scientific classification Edit this classification
Domain: Eukaryota
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Actinopterygii
Order: Gobiiformes
Family: Gobiidae
Genus: Neogobius
Iljin, 1927
Type species
Gobius fluviatilis
(Pallas, 1814)[1]
Synonyms
  • Apollonia Iljin, 1927
  • Chasar Vasil'eva, 1996
  • Eichwaldia Smitt, 1900
  • Eichwaldiella Whitley, 1930

Species edit

There are currently four recognized species in this genus:[2][3]

Of these, N. bathybius, N. caspius and N. pallasi are endemic to the Caspian basin. N. fluviatilis is a sister species of N. pallasi in the Black Sea basin. N. melanostomus, the round goby, is native to both basins, and is the most aggressively spreading fish to exotic watersheds.

References edit

  1. ^ Eschmeyer, William N.; Fricke, Ron & van der Laan, Richard (eds.). "Neogobius". Catalog of Fishes. California Academy of Sciences. Retrieved 17 August 2018.
  2. ^ Froese, Rainer and Pauly, Daniel, eds. (2022). Species of Neogobius in FishBase. August 2022 version.
  3. ^ Tajbakhsh, Fatemeh; Rajabi-Maham, Hassan; Abdoli, Asghar; Stepien, Carol A; Kiabi, Bahram H (2022). "DNA Sequence Support for Reclassification of the Endemic Southern Caspian Sea Deepwater Goby as Neogobius bathybius (Formerly Ponticola; Perciformes: Gobiidae) and Recent Population Expansion of a Continuous Population". Ichthyology & Herpetology. 110 (1): 13–21. doi:10.1643/i2020015. S2CID 245916452. Retrieved 20 January 2022.