Two new species of Elacatinus (Teleostei: Gobiidae) from the Mexican coast of the Gulf of Mexico.
Author
Michael S. Taylor
Author
Lad Akins
text
Zootaxa
2007
1425
45
51
http://www.zoobank.org/urn:lsid:zoobank.org:pub:18244B2E-7BB4-438A-AFAC-0368CE6AF39A
journal article
z01425p045
18244B2E-7BB4-438A-AFAC-0368CE6AF39A
[[
Elacatinus Jordan
]]
In the Neotropics, one of the largest genera of gobies is
Elacatinus Jordan
with two subgenera,
Tigrigobius Fowler
and
Elacatinus
(Hoese 1971; Eschmeyer 1998). (We distinguish between the genus and subgenus
Elacatinus
with sensu lato [s.l.] and sensu stricto [s.s.], respectively.) The subgenus
Tigrigobius
has five nominal species in the eastern Pacific Ocean (but see Hoese & Reader 2001 for a suggested synonymy) and seven species in the western Atlantic Ocean. In contrast, the subgenus
Elacatinus
has only a single species in the eastern Pacific, but 15 species are found in the western Atlantic. Together, the 22 western Atlantic species of
Elacatinus
(s.l.) are distributed variously from Bermuda and the coast of the southeastern United States, southward throughout the Bahamas and Caribbean Sea, to the reefs and offshore islands of Brazil (
Boehlke
& Robins 1968; Colin 1975; Sazima et al. 1997; Colin 2002;
Guimaraes
et al. 2004). However, the genus is notably depauperate in the Gulf of Mexico, with only three species,
E. oceanops Jordon
,
E. xanthiprora (
Boehlke
& Robins)
and
E. macrodon (Beebe and Tee-Van)
, previously reported.