The arrival of a second ‘Lessepsian sprinter’? A first record of the red cornetfish Fistularia petimba in the Eastern Mediterranean

Abstract

Here we document the first occurrence of the red cornetfish Fistularia petimba in the Levantine Basin. This species identity has been confirmed using morphological and molecular tools, and is presented here with simplified illustrations for accurate future identification. This report voices a concern regarding another blitz invasion of a cornetfish into the Mediterranean, following its Lessepsian sprinter congeneric, F. commersonii, one of the most efficacious invaders of the Mediterranean Sea. The wide intra-specific genetic distances found between sympatric F. petimba specimens in the available literature resources may also demonstrate the presence of cryptic diversity within this taxon.

First record of red cornetfish Fistularia petimba (Syngnathiformes:Fistulariidae) from Antalya and İskenderun Bays along Turkish Coasts of the Mediterranean Sea

“…The morphology of the F. petimba specimens captured in Antalya and İskenderun Bays agrees with the typical diagnostic features of the species (Fritzsche, 1976). The meristic counts and morphometric measurements of the caught specimens are presented in Table 1 together with the similar measurements from the two previous records of the species in the western and eastern Mediterranean Sea (Cárdenas et al, 1997;Stern et al, 2017). Even though the F. petimba specimens caught in Antalya Bay were slightly smaller than those from İskenderun Bay, the sizes of all fish were more or less uniform.…”

“…One specimen belonging to this species was captured off the southern coast of Spain in the western Mediterranean Sea in 1996 by Cárdenas, Berastegui, and Ortiz (). Following this, F. petimba had not been registered anywhere in the Mediterranean Sea until a very recent study by Stern, Paz, Yudkovsky, Lubinevsky, and Rinkevich () reporting of the presence of F. petimba in the eastern Mediterranean Sea. The second Fistularia species encountered in the Mediterranean Sea is F. commersonii Rüppell, 1838 , first observed near the Israeli coast of the eastern Mediterranean Sea (Golani, ).…”

Progress in Mediterranean bioinvasions two years after the Suez Canal enlargement

“…Fistularia petimba: following the first finding in of this cornet fish in December 2011, off the coast of Ashdod, five additional juvenile specimens of F. petimba were caught on November 26, 2017, in the southern coast of Israel, from a shallow depth of 20m. This finding confirms the establishment of this species along the Israeli Mediterranean coast (STERN et al, 2017).…”

New Mediterranean Biodiversity Records 2019

“…Additional specimens were later collected from Iskenderun Bay, Turkey (21/5/2017 - Ünlüoğlu et al, 2018), the southern coast of Israel (26/11/2017(26/11/ -Stern et al, 2018 and Mersin Bay (10/5/2018 - Çiftçi et al, 2018). Genetic analyses conducted on the first Israeli specimens indicate that the Suez Canal is the most likely pathway of introduction for the Eastern Mediterranean records (Stern et al, 2018).…”