Page 10 - ArcipelagoEgadi

Fig. 14: Goniobranchus annulatus in aquarium.
cessfully adapted, feeding on the algae and Aiptasia spp.
attached to the hard substrates of the aquarium tanks, for
a period of more than 30 days (Fig. 14).
Close to the area of collection (36.063645°Ν,
27.997037°Ε) there is a jetty (36.068128°Ν,
28.004172°E), used for the docking of fishing vessels and
cargo ships, which supply Rhodes and the neighbouring
islands with construction materials and provisions from
around Greece. This is probably the vector of introduc-
tion of the species into the waters of Rhodes thus support-
ing the hypothesis of its introduction in Saronikos Gulf
(Daskos & Zenetos, 2007). However, range expansion
from the already established population in the Levantine
Sea is also an option.
The depth and substrate (hard with algae) of the collec-
tions agree with that of Greek (Daskos & Zenetos, 2007),
Cyprian (Tsiakkiros & Zenetos, 2011), Turkish (e.g. Özcan
et al., 2010), Lebanese (Crocetta et al., 2013), and Israeli
specimens (Pasternak et al., 2011). Coloration agrees with
all specimens from the Mediterranean (e.g. Gökoglu &
Özgur, 2008), except for that of Daskos & Zenetos (2007).
This third record in Hellenic waters, fills the distribu- to the previous ones from neighboring areas and confirms
tion gap of the species from the western central to the
south-eastern part of the Aegean Sea.
2.6. Filling the gaps: on the presence of Melibe viridis
in Lebanon
By F. Crocetta and M. Bariche
Melibe viridis (Kelaart, 1858) (Mollusca: Gastropoda:
Tethydidae) is a conspicuous shallow water Indo-Pacific
opisthobranch, that has invaded the Mediterranean Sea
since the 1970s. It is currently known from the central
and the eastern Mediterranean Sea, including the Adriatic
(Croatia, Montenegro, Italy, Tunisia, Malta, Greece,
Turkey, Cyprus and Israel) (bibliographic and web refer-
ences in Tsiakkiros & Zenetos, 2011). Records from the
easternmost part of the Mediterranean Sea are scarce,
and consist of a few records from Cyprus (Tsiakkiros &
Zenetos, 2011) and a single record from Israel (Mienis,
Medit. Mar. Sci., 16/2, 2015, 472-488
2010). The absence of early Red Sea records, as well as
its first records from Greece (see Tsiakkiros & Zenetos,
2011), suggested that its presence in the Mediterranean
Sea was most presumably due to shipping transport rather
than to a passage from the Indo-Pacific through the Suez
Canal (Lessepsian immigration). However, the mode of
introduction of this species remains questionable.
On 28 May 2015, a single specimen of Melibe
viridis was collected from the fishing port of Batroun
(34.257276°N, 35.657224°E) in Lebanon. The specimen
was captured with a landing net, while wandering betwen
the boats at about 1 m depth. A video of the swimming
individual can be visualized at the following webpage:
http://youtu.be/uZQrcbRpRdw. So far, the species was
unknown from Lebanon (see Crocetta et al., 2013) and
our record fills a gap in its known Mediterranean invaded
range. This and other published additions (see Ramos-
Esplá et al., 2015) increase taxa the “opisthobranch” fau-
na for Lebanon to 39 taxa. Crocetta et al. (2013) pointed
out a higher proportion (approx. 34%) of alien species
with respect to native ones in the Lebanese seaslug fauna,
outstandingly exceeding the range of 10-20% commonly
estimated for the entire Levantine fauna. With these new
data, alien, possible alien and cryptogenic fauna (14 spe-
cies) amounts to 35.9%. Moreover, this rare record adds
the presence of the species in the Levantine Sea.
2.7. New records of blue spotted cornetfish Fistularia
commersonii on the Alicante coast (Eastern Spain)
By A. Izquierdo-Muñoz and D. Izquierdo-Gómez
The first citation of Fistularia commersonii (Rüppell,
1838) in the Mediterranean Sea was from Israel (Golani,
2000) in 2000, but later records report it from Lebanon in
1975 (Bariche et al., 2014). The species spread rapidly across
the Mediterranean reaching as far west as Granada (southern
coast of Spain) in 2007 (Sanchez-Tocino et al., 2007).
In January 2015, one specimen of Fistularia commer-
sonii was captured by a fisherman using a trammel net at
Urbanova beach (38.28330ºN, 0.50695ºW), at a depth of
Fig. 15: Specimen of Fistularia commersonii captured at
Urbanova beach.
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