Elacatinus phthirophagus, Noronha cleaner goby

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Elacatinus phthirophagus Sazima, Carvalho-Filho & Sazima, 2008

Noronha cleaner goby
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Elacatinus phthirophagus
Picture by Sazima, I.

Classification / Names Common names | Synonyms | Catalog of Fishes(genus, species) | ITIS | CoL | WoRMS | Cloffa

Teleostei (teleosts) > Gobiiformes (Gobies) > Gobiidae (Gobies) > Gobiinae
Etymology: Elacatinus: Greek, elakatines = fusiform fishes preserved in salt (Ref. 45335);  phthirophagus: From the Greek phteir, phtheiros = louse, and phagein, phagos = to eat, an allusion to this goby feeding mostly on larval, parasitic gnathiid isopods it picks from its clients..

Environment: milieu / climate zone / depth range / distribution range Ecology

Marine; benthopelagic; depth range 3 - 18 m (Ref. 79614). Tropical; 3°S - 4°S, 32°W - 33°W

Distribution Countries | FAO areas | Ecosystems | Occurrences | Point map | Introductions | Faunafri

Atlantic Ocean: Fernando de Noronha Archipelago, a volcanic formation off NE Brazil, tropical Southwestern Atlantic (Ref. 79614).

Size / Weight / Age

Maturity: Lm ?  range ? - ? cm
Max length : 3.2 cm SL male/unsexed; (Ref. 79614); 2.6 cm SL (female)

Short description Morphology | Morphometrics

Dorsal spines (total): 7; Dorsal soft rays (total): 10-11; Anal spines: 1; Anal soft rays: 11; Vertebrae: 18. Elacatinus phthirophagus differs from its congeners of the putative “randalli-evelynae” cleaning clade (sensu Taylor & Hellberg 2005) by the following combination of characters: mouth subterminal, pale (bright yellow in life) elliptical spot on dark snout, width of lateral pale (bright yellow in life) stripe almost equal as eye diameter (slightly narrower in live individuals), light purplish sheen (in life) extending laterally from below eye to tail origin, no blue line (in life) from below eye to end of opercular margin, teeth multiserial on the distal portion of both jaws, males with 3 enlarged and recurved teeth on dentary inner row (Ref. 79614). Body naked, elongate and slightly laterally compressed. Mouth subterminal, U-shaped. Teeth conical and slightly curved on both jaws (Ref. 79614). Color pattern: bright yellow postocular stripe extending to the middle of caudal-fin; bright yellow elliptical spot on blackish snout (the latter less pigmented in small juveniles); upper portion of eye bright yellow and lower part black; black lateral stripe from lower half of eye’s posterior edge to the middle of caudal-fin and more or less coincident with lateral septum (fading towards the end of caudal-fin); black dorsal stripe from middle of interorbital space extending in a curve to the anterior third of caudal-fin (in some large specimens the anterior part of this stripe is divided by a paler, grayish stripe); lower jaw and belly whitish, the anterior third of belly with a light purplish sheen; cheek and lower part of operculum to preoperculum rosy with purplish sheen; dorsal, pectoral and anal-fins, and outer border of caudal-fin pale with scattered dark chromatophores; pelvic-fin pale with no or fewer scattered chromatophores (Ref. 79614).

Biology     Glossary (e.g. epibenthic)

Occurs in the archipelago islets; in cleaning stations on coral heads, sponges, and rocky substrata, with up to 15 individuals present in large stations, particularly those on sponges. Recorded to clean about 30 species of fish clients, including large carnivores such as shark (Carcharhinus perezi) and smaller carnivores (grouper Cephalopholis fulva), besides small clients like the planktivorous damselfish (Chromis multilineata) and zoobenthivorous butterflyfish (Chaetodon ocellatus) (Ref. 79614).

Life cycle and mating behavior Maturity | Reproduction | Spawning | Eggs | Fecundity | Larvae

Main reference Upload your references | References | Coordinator | Collaborators

Sazima, I., A. Carvalho-Filho and C. Sazima, 2008. A new cleaner species of Elacatinus(Actinopterygii: Gobiidae) from the Southwestern Atlantic. Zootaxa 1932:27-32. (Ref. 79614)

IUCN Red List Status (Ref. 130435)


CITES

Not Evaluated

CMS (Ref. 116361)

Not Evaluated

Threat to humans

  Harmless





Human uses

FAO - Publication: search | FishSource |

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Internet sources

AFORO (otoliths) | Aquatic Commons | BHL | Cloffa | BOLDSystems | Websites from users | Check FishWatcher | CISTI | Catalog of Fishes: genus, species | DiscoverLife | ECOTOX | FAO - Publication: search | Faunafri | Fishipedia | Fishtrace | GenBank: genome, nucleotide | GloBI | Google Books | Google Scholar | Google | IGFA World Record | MitoFish | Otolith Atlas of Taiwan Fishes | PubMed | Reef Life Survey | Socotra Atlas | Tree of Life | Wikipedia: Go, Search | World Records Freshwater Fishing | Zoobank | Zoological Record

Estimates based on models

Phylogenetic diversity index (Ref. 82804):  PD50 = 0.5000   [Uniqueness, from 0.5 = low to 2.0 = high].
Bayesian length-weight: a=0.01023 (0.00477 - 0.02194), b=3.02 (2.84 - 3.20), in cm total length, based on LWR estimates for this (Sub)family-body shape (Ref. 93245).
Trophic level (Ref. 69278):  3.4   ±0.3 se; based on size and trophs of closest relatives
Resilience (Ref. 120179):  High, minimum population doubling time less than 15 months (Preliminary K or Fecundity.).
Fishing Vulnerability (Ref. 59153):  Low vulnerability (10 of 100).