New and interesting records of marine fishes (Actinopterygii) from the Maltese Islands (central Mediterranean)

Abstract

The occurrence of three bony ray-finned fishes, Thorogobius ephippiatus (Lowe, 1839), Chlopsis bicolor Rafinesque, 1810, and Grammonus ater (Risso, 1810) is reported for the first time in the scientific literature from Maltese coastal waters. The leopard-spotted goby, T. ephippiatus, was mostly recorded within the 8–32 m depth range on soft sediment and rocky bottoms within caves, but one individual was recorded on a rocky bottom with a thin layer of silt at a depth of 117 m where no cave was present. The bicolour eel, C. bicolor, was recorded within the 318–518 m depth range on rocky bottoms covered with a thin layer of muddy-detritic sediment; and the cusk-eel G. ater was recorded at a depth of 10 m within a cave. Notes on these three species as well as on another bony fish, the Azores rockling, Gaidropsarus granti (Regan, 1903), including new information on their bathymetric range and habitat association, are presented.