A New Genus and New Species of Gobioid Fish (Gobiidae: Gobionellinae) from Sunderbans, India

Abstract

Updated information on fish fauna of India resulted in summarising that the Indian waters are represented by 69 genera and 174 species of gobioid fishes (Perciformes, Gobiidae). The subfamily Gobione11inae comprises of 13 genera and 33 species in India. While working on the gobioid fishes of Indian Sundarbans (latitude 21 °13' 22°40' N. and longitude 88°03'89°06' E.),the first author came across few specimens of an interesting goby. After careful examination that turned out to be an undescribed species. However, no known genus could accommodate the new species and that warranted erecting a new taxon in generic level. The other gobies of Indian Sundarbans are dealt elsewhere (Chatterjee et al., in press) reporting 44 species and 35 genera from the region. The new genus and the new species have been initially described by the first author (Chatterjee, 1978) in his doctoral thesis and the name is also appeared in MandaI & Nandi (1989) and Talwar et al. (1992), but it is not formally published to be treated as 'available' under the provisions of the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature. The new species is hereunder described as Awaouichthys menoni sp. nov. with the genus Awaouichthys gen. nov.