Bony fish · Perciformes · Gobiidae

Atlantic Mudskipper

Periophthalmus barbarus

Not Evaluated

It has not yet been assessed against the IUCN criteria. See full glossary

The Atlantic mudskipper is a fish of the family Gobiidae in the order Perciformes, native to the fresh, marine and brackish waters of the tropical Atlantic coasts of Africa, including most of the nearby islands. The Greek scientific name Periophthalmus barbarus refers to the eyes that give the fish a wide field of vision. It is a member of the genus Periophthalmus, which includes oxudercine gobies that have a row of canine-like teeth.

Size

10 cm – 25 cm

Lifespan

5 years

Diet

Carnivore

Feeds mainly on other animals.

Activity

Diurnal

Active mainly during the day.

Social structure

Colony

Lives in large concentrations, often for breeding reasons.

Sighting difficulty

Unknown

OceanCarnivore Diurnal Colonial Fish Ocean

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Fun facts

It breathes through its skin and through the lining of its mouth and throat, as long as they stay moist, and carries water in its gill chambers as a portable reserve.
Its bulging, independently mobile eyes retract into its head to be moistened, a blink without eyelids.
It digs burrows in the mud in which it traps a bubble of air, which lets the eggs develop in a setting with no dissolved oxygen.
It is the only mudskipper in the Atlantic: all the rest of the genus lives in the Indo-Pacific.
It feeds on land, and that is a difficult physical problem. It solves it by carrying water in its mouth: it compresses the mouth cavity to expel the water over the prey and then sucks it back in, swallowing the animal together with the water in a single movement.
It props itself on its strong, muscular pectoral fins to lower its head and place its mouth over the prey.
Its eyes sit high on the head, close together and protruding, giving it an enormous field of vision out of the water. The genus name comes from the Greek peri, around, and ophthalmos, eye.
It digs burrows in the mud that serve as a refuge at high tide and as a nest.
It has been studied as a model for the sea-to-land transition made by the first tetrapods in the Devonian.

Life cycle & biology

Skeleton type: Vertebrate - internal bony skeleton (fish)
Habitat & environment: Intertidal mudflats and mangroves of the Atlantic coast of West Africa
Sexual maturity: Females at around 10.2 cm and males at around 10.8

Sources consulted: https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Periophthalmus_barbarus