The first record of Australian flatback mangrove goby Mugilogobius platynotus (Günther 1861) (Gobiidae; Tridentigerinae) from New Zealand

ABSTRACT

The eastern Australian flatback mangrove goby Mugilogobius platynotus (Günther 1861) is recorded for the first time from Aotearoa, New Zealand. Three voucher specimens (two males and one female) were collected using fish traps submerged in tidal drains of a saltmarsh wetland edged by mangroves adjacent to Ngunguru River, Northland. Key characters for identification: the colour of freshly thawed specimens, meristic counts, and morphometric measurements are presented and compared with the same characters described by Larson (2001) for all Mugilogobius. We discuss this major range extension from its natural Australian distribution, concluding it is an adventive species, probably carried across the Tasman Sea into New Zealand waters by shipping, not ocean currents. Our analysis of goby species recorded from northern New Zealand mainland waters concludes seven (86%) are probably adventive and introduced from Australia. We recommend a further survey of mangrove and saltmarsh estuary habitats to discover if this new goby has established a breeding population and is expanding its current limited distribution within northern New Zealand.

KEYWORDS:

• New Zealand gobies
• Australian adventive
• new record
• temperate mangrove
• tidal saltmarsh
• estuary habitats

Acknowledgements

We thank Hilton and Melva Ward, Old Mill Lane, Ngunguru, for access, support, and help with the on-going collection of fishes from their wetland-mangrove area; Helen Larson and Doug Hoese for their initial identifications from photographs; Carl Struthers and Jeremy Barker, Te Papa Fish Team, for assistance in the lab, especially photography and registration, respectively; Rick Webber and Bruce Marshall, Te Papa, for the identification of wetland crustaceans and molluscs, respectively, which are now registered into the Te Papa invertebrate collection; Nicola Caldwell, Te Papa, who sourced many of the references; Ngunguru Primary School for a loan of their metal fish traps; Elisabeth Myers for comments on an early draft of the manuscript; the two anonymous referees greatly improved the submitted manuscript with their helpful comments.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was funded by NIWA Wellington, under Strategic Science Investment Fund (SSIF), Coasts & Oceans Programme 2, Marine Biological Resources, Fishes (CDR, CS, JB), and the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa, Wellington (ALS).