| Racer gody | |
|---|---|
| The Racer Goby from the Bug River, Poland | |
| Conservation status | |
| Scientific classification | |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Class: | Actinopterygii |
| Order: | Perciformes |
| Suborder: | Gobioidei |
| Family: | Gobiidae |
| Subfamily: | Benthophilinae |
| Genus: | Babka Iljin, 1927 |
| Species: | B. gymnotrachelus |
| Binomial name | |
| Babka gymnotrachelus (Kessler, 1857) |
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| The range of the racer goby | |
| Synonyms | |
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Racer goby, Babka gymnotrachelus, is a species of fish in the Gobiidae family. Its natural range is fresh, sometime brackish waters, of the Black Sea basin.[1] It is a Ponto-Caspian relict species. The species is related to a monotypic genus Babka, which was considered as subgenus of Neogobius genus earlier, but now it is erected based on the molecular analysis[2][3].
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It has 7–8 dorsal spines, 14–18 dorsal soft rays, a single anal spine and 12–16 anal soft rays. This species is distinguished from its congeners by the multiple characteristics. It has diagonal bars of irregular position and shape. The first branched ray of second dorsal is about as long as its penultimate ray. It lacks scales on midline of nape, anterior to its preoperculum. It has a pelvic-disc fraenum with small rounded lobes and length less than 1/6 of width at base. It has 54-62 + 2-3 scales in midlateral series. The posterior part of first dorsal has no black spot.
This goby inhabits the coasts of Turkey, the rivers of the Caucasus, including Inguri, Rioni and the rivers of Kolkhida, including Lake Paliastomi, Lake Suzha. In the north-western Black Sea it inhabits the Dnieper-Bug Estuary, Dniester Estuary, near the Tendra sandbar and Berezan Island. In the Danube River it is widspread up to Vidin, and lives in tributaries and lakes of Danube delta, including Brateş, Kahul, Yalpug, Katlabuh, Kitay, Razelm, etc. It inhabits the Dniester River and its tributaries, including Zbruch, Zhvanchik, Smotrych, Răut, Bîc, Dubăsari Reservoir. It is common in the Southern Bug River and in the Dnieper River as far as Kiev. It lives in the Kamchiya River and Lake Shablensko in Bulgaria. In the Sea of Azov it is in Taganrog Bay and the Don, Aksay, Seversky Donets rivers. Also inhabits the Caspian Sea, where presented by the subspecies Babka gymnotrachelus macrophthalmus.
The racer goby inhabits but is non-indigenous in the rivers of the Baltic basin, including the Bug and Vistula.[4][5][6] It was also introduced in the Middle Danube, in Hungary.[7] Through the Danube River this fish species was introduced to the Rhine River, were it is occurred since 2010.[8]
In the Dniester Estuary half of its diet consists of fish. The rest is a mix of crustaceans (Corophiidae) (29.6%), molluscs (Dreissena, Adacna, Monodacna) (12,5%) and polychaetes (Hypania invalida).[9] In the Dnieper River near Kiev the diet consists of molluscs Dreissena sp., amphipods and sewage worms Tubifex tubifex.
| External identifiers for Racer goby | |
|---|---|
| EOL | 224378 |
| ITIS | 172070 |
| NCBI | 320567 |
| WoRMS | 126914 |
| Also found in: FishBase | |