First confirmed occurrence of syrman goby Neogobius syrman (Gobiidae, Perciformes) in Sasyk Lake of the Black Sea basin and karyological characteristic of syrman goby and ginger goby N. eurycephalus

Abstract

Detailed description of four gobies from Sasyk Lake is made demonstrating correctness of their species identification as the syrman goby Neogobius syrman and, thus, for the first time confirming their presence in this lake. The karyotype of syrman goby includes, in the diploid set, from 32 to 34 chromosomes with the number of chromosome arms as 46. Previously, such karyotype was described for the ginger goby N. eurycephalus due to erroneous species identification of the karyotyped fish. In reality, the karyotype of the ginger goby includes 46 acrocentric chromosomes. With today’s condition of strong freshening of the Black Sea lagoon lakes Sasyk and Raselm, there is little probability of the presence of ginger goby there.