The invasive silver-cheeked toadfish, Lagocephalus sceleratus (Gmelin, 1789) appeared in the Sea of Marmara after more than a decade: A call for awareness

Abstract

This study presents a new locality record of poisonous pufferfish, Lagocephalus sceleratus (Gmelin, 1789), one of the 18 worst invader fish species identified globally by IUCN, from the Sea of Marmara caught by a commercial purse seine fishing vessel while fishing anchovy on 22 February 2021. Previously, this invasive species was first recorded at the Gelibolu peninsula in the Sea of Marmara between September 2007 and October 2008. Lagocephalus sceleratus recorded in this study is larger in size with 142 mm total length than previous records (126 mm in 2007; 95 mm in 2008) for the Sea of Marmara. The presently reported record represents the first documented occurrence of this species in the Erdek Bay of the Sea of Marmara and the third documented record for the entire Sea of Marmara.

Decoding the spread of non-indigenous fishes in the Mediterranean Sea

“…Even though our results exhibit a north-westward trajectory in the Mediterranean Sea, a recent published work forecasted that it may enter and establish the Black Sea through the Dardanelle Strait 24 . In fact, L. sceleratus has been documented twice, both in the Sea of Marmara (i.e., connection point between Mediterranean-Black Sea) and the Black Sea 40 . If this speculation is confirmed, the Black Sea ichthyofauna may be in peril considering its high degree of endemism, estimated almost three times higher than in the Mediterranean (i.e., 31.22%) 41 .…”