Bighead goby

Kessler goby ( Ponti Cola kessleri )

The Kessler- goby ( Ponti Cola kessleri ( Syn: Neogobius kessleri ) ) is a Southeast European Grundelart. It was named in honor of ichthyologist Karl Fedorovich Kessler.

Features

The Kessler- goby is 12 to 18, a maximum of 22 inches long. Your body is elongated, the head broad and flattened. The total length of the goby is 2.75 times the length of the head. The mouth is oblique, the lower jaw is facing. The foot is 1.5 to 2 times as long as the eye diameter. The top of the head and a third of the gill cover are scaly. In the middle shed longitudinal row (MLR ) counting 64-79 scales. Of the two dorsal fins, the first 5-6 spines, the second of a fin spines and 15 to 18 is supported (usually 16 to 18) articulated soft rays. The anal fin has a fin spines and 11 to 16 ( usually 12 to 15) articulated soft rays. The pelvic fins are pointed.

Dissemination

The Kessler comes Goby in the lower reaches and mouths of the Danube, Dniester, Dnieper, and the bow and in the adjacent, slightly brackish areas of the Black Sea against. In the Azov Sea missing. In recent decades, the Kessler- goby, like other Pontic gobies has also greatly expanded their range by wandering the rivers upstream. In 1979, she was detected in Balaton, 1984 in the Hungarian section of the Danube, 2003 at Raab, on the border with Austria, October 2006 in the Rhine at King Winter, 2008 in the Rhine at Duisburg, in March 2009 in the Lower Rhine Dutch and in the fall of 2011 at Basel

Way of life

The Kessler- goby is a bottom fish that lives on rocky, sandy soils in freshwater and brackish water low salinity. It feeds mainly on small crustaceans such as shrimp and amphipods hover, worms, molluscs and smaller fish. Kessler gobies typically spawn twice a year, from March to May The revier forming male guards the sticky, deposited on stones, shells or water plants eggs until hatching of juveniles.

System

The Kessler- Goby belongs to a 1927 established subfamily Pontic and North American gobies, the Benthophilinae. Within the Benthophilinae it counts to the 2009 newly established Tribus Ponticolini. Sister species is Ponti Cola eurycephalus, which is common in Ukraine and thus partly occurs in the same habitat.