Strange clown goby ID – 04/20/09
Hello, Ladies and Gents!
I purchased a clown goby today at the LFS, which apparently arrived with the "regular" green clown gobies. I was wondering if you could help me ID this fish from the attached photo (the white dots on the fish are tiny air bubbles from the freshwater dip I was doing). I am assuming it is just a different color morph, but I have not been able to find any pictures of any that look like this. It almost looks like it is halfway in between a yellow and a green, with the characteristics of both.
Thank you much!
Emily
<Greetings. Looks like Gobiodon citrinus, in particularly the humeral spot (the black spot above the pectoral fin) and the alternating light and dark bands between the eye and gill covers. Do look here:
http://fishbase.mnhn.fr/summary/SpeciesSummary.php?id=7789
Click on the photo at top right to see more images.
Cheers, Neale.>

Re: Strange clown goby ID 4/20/2009
Thank you so much for the quick reply. My first inclination was a Citron goby as well, but the pictures just don't match up.
<Oh?>
Mine doesn't have any of the white/turquoise striping along the dorsal area or on the gill plates.
<Agreed, but the oblique striping is there, and the colour variation could reflect age, stress, geographical provenance. This species is the Clown Goby of the UK marine trade, and fairly variable.
http://www.fishbase.org/Photos/ThumbnailsSummary.php?ID=46399>
The only light stripes are right through its eye. The Citron gobies also don't seem to have any red on them at all. Rather, this little guy has symmetrical red dots along the dorsal area instead, as well as on its gill
plates and eye stripe. You can't see in the first picture very well, but the very edge of his tail also has a reddish orange tinge that fades into the yellow.
<Do also look at G. reticulatus, here:
http://www.fishbase.org/Photos/ThumbnailsSummary.php?ID=46399
It does have the red/blue cheek markings, but lacks the humeral spot.
Compare this with G. okinawae, the Clown Goby of the US trade, here:
http://www.fishbase.org/Photos/ThumbnailsSummary.php?ID=7217
This fish doesn't have any markings of any kind, so far as I can tell.>
Where the red markings occur on this fish, it looks similar to the markings on my regular green clown gobies. Is it possible for there to be a hybrid of the two species?
<Gobiodon citrinus and Gobiodon okinawae might occur in the same places, e.g. Southern Japan, if Fishbase is anything to go by, but G. reticulatus is found far to the west of those two more easterly fish, so wouldn't hybridise with either.>
<<Could indeed be a hybrid. RMF>>
I have attached a different photo showing a view from above to help explain a little better. The colors are more intense in this photo, I think because it was when I had first put him in the freshwater bath and he wasn't as stressed!
Thanks again,
Emily
<Bob may instantly recognise this fish when he or someone else from the marine team checks in; in the meantime, do peruse the options at Fishbase, here:
http://64.95.130.5/NomenClature/ValidNameList.cfm?criteria=SYNONYMS.SynGenus
+%3D+%27Gobiodon%27++AND+SYNONYMS.SynSpecies+like+%27%25%25%27+&vtitle=Scien
tific+Names+where+genus+equals+%3Ci%3EGobiodon%3C%2Fi%3E
That link should take you straight to the Gobiodon species listing.
Cheers, Neale>
<<My best guess, and this is all it is, would be either a G. histrio or a
hybrid. A beautiful Gobiodon specimen in all cases. BobF>>