Author: Fabricius, 1779
Gobiusculus flavescens Fabricius, 1779
Status in World Register of Marine Species:
Accepted name: Gobiusculus flavescens (Fabricius, 1779) (updated 2009-06-25)
Diagnosis: see genus. Dl VII (VII-VIII); D2 I + 9-10; A I + 9-10; P 17-18. Scales in lateral series 35-40. Vertebrae 32 (32-33). Colour: reddish to olive-brown with dark reticulation and pale saddles across back; dark and bluish spots along lateral midline; large black spot, partly edged yellow, at base of caudal fin; males with another large black lateral spot below first dorsal fin; dorsal fins banded red. Size: to 6 cm.
Habitat: inshore, midwater, in groups about weed-grown structures and over Laminaria or Zostera beds, to 20 m; also intertidal pools, among fucoids, to HWN. Food: small crustaceans (copepods, amphipods, mysids), chaetognaths, various larvae. Reproduction: typically April-August (western English Channel) with repeat spawning; post-larvae from February to September off western Ireland; April-July (Trondheim). Eggs 0-7 0.8 x 0.6 mm, inside hollow Sacchoriza holdfasts or on other smooth substrates; hatch in about 10 days, at 2.2-2.6 mm.
Distribution: eastern Atlantic, from the Faeroes, Vesteralen (Norway), and western Baltic to north-west Spain, excluding south-eastern North Sea. Mediterranean records, from Sicily and the Adriatic, require confirmation.
Eggs, larvae and young stages. Petersen, 1891: 6, pl. 1a (fig. 7-8), pl. 1b (fig. 9) | Guitel, 1895: 263 | Holt, 1899b: 44 | Ehrenbaum, 1905: 99 | Le Danois, 1913: 124, fig. 271 | Petersen, 1917: 8, pl. I (fig. 13-18); 1919: 54, pl. 1 (fig. 16-19), pl. 2 (fig. 10-12) | Lebour, 1919: 69, pl. 3 (fig. 3-12) | Padoa, 1953: 656, fig. 529-533 | Russell, 1976: 264, fig. 63-64.
Otoliths (sagitta). Fryd, 1901: 23.