Kingdom Animalia Family Gobiidae Phylum Chordata Rank Species | Class Actinopterygii Subfamily Gobiinae Genus Elacatinus Order Perciformes | |
Similar Elacatinus, Elacatinus evelynae, Coryphopterus personatus, Coryphopterus glaucofraenum, Elacatinus puncticulatus | ||
Elacatinus horsti, the Yellowline goby, is a species of goby native to the western Atlantic Ocean and the Caribbean Sea.
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Description
The yellowline goby grows to 5 centimetres (2.0 in) in length. It has a rounded snout and a long slim body. The upper parts are black and the underside is grey gradually paling to white. Some fish have a bright yellow stripe running along each side from the eye to the tail, with often a yellow spot or short line on the snout. In juvenile fish this stripe is shorter and extends just beyond the base of the pectoral fin. Young Elacatinus chancei are very similar in appearance but in that species, the yellow line hardly reaches the pectoral fin. In another form of the fish, the stripe is white, paling to a bluish-grey colour beyond the pectoral fin. The dorsal fin is in two parts and has seven spines and eleven to twelve soft rays, the pectoral fin eighteen rays and the anal fin has a single spine and ten soft rays.
Distribution
The yellowline goby is found on the Gulf Coast of the United States, the Gulf of Mexico, the Caribbean Sea, the Bahamas, Curaçao and Panama. It is found on reefs at depths between 7 and 27 metres (23 and 89 ft).
Biology
The yellowline goby is always found living in association with a tubular sponge such as Verongia aerophoba or a massive sponge such as Neofibularia nolitangere and feeding on the parasitic worms Haplosyllis spongicola that live in large numbers on these sponges. It also eats other invertebrates that live on the seabed and plankton.