Isles of Scilly Fish and Fisheries - Cornwall Wildlife Trust

off the Cornish coast (M. Gilbert, pers. comm., 2010), and so naturally occurring A.
marinus is a possibility in the coastal waters of Scilly.
9.18) Gobies, Gobiidae
Eight species of goby have been recorded from the Isles of Scilly (Isles of Scilly
Museum, 1971; Hussain and Knight-Jones, 1995; Parslow, 2000; and ERCCIS, 2010),
out of nineteen or twenty one species found in the British Isles and surrounding waters.
In part this apparent paucity of species is probably an artefact of the lack of collecting
and recording of these small fish. Many of the records are of Gobius sp. or
Pomatoschistus sp., and have not been determined to species level.
T. ephippiatus was first discovered in British seas in the 1950s with the advent of
scientific diving and is now known to be relatively common in suitable habitats.
The other large gobies recorded are G. paganellus, G. cobitis and the Black Goby G.
niger. The only record found of G. niger in the islands is in the museum list (Isles of
Scilly Museum, 1971), where it is noted along with G. paganellus as “Both found in
rock pools.” This is strange because while G. niger might be found on the lower shore,
it is more commonly a sublittoral species (living at depths of 2 to 70 m) on muddy and
sandy bottoms, especially in estuaries and lagoons (Maitland and Herdson, 2009).
This species may occur in the area, as they are frequently associated with Zostera
beds, but none have been reported from that habitat in Scilly. However, the museum
list does not mention G. cobitis, which is a similar size and colouration to G. niger and
is almost exclusively found in upper shore rock pools. G. cobitis was only fully
accepted as a British species in 1960 (Wheeler, 1960) and did not appear in most fish
identification guides until the 1970s. Hence it is feasible that the species referred to is
not G. niger but G. cobitis.
G. cobitis is a subtidal species in the Mediterranean but in the United Kingdom is
confined to large upper shore rockpools in south west Devon, Cornwall and the Isles of
Scilly (Fig. 2). The second largest European goby, it is rare and vulnerable to
disturbance with a significant population in Scilly (Potts and Swaby, 1995). G. cobitis
is listed on Schedule V of the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981, which protects them
from intentional killing, injuring or taking (Lewis et al. 2008). This species has been
regularly recorded in Scilly (Potts and Swaby, 1992; Wheeler, 1993; Hussain and
Knight-Jones, 1995; Parslow, 2000). However, as mentioned previously, during the
Porcupine Marine Natural History Society field meeting several large gobies (11-14 cm
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