Blunt Snouted Clingfish

This species is distinguished from its congeners by the following set of characters: dorsal head profile straight between nape above eye and upper lip tip; the posterior angle of jaws extends to between a vertical line drawn through the posterior edge of the anterior nostril and a vertical line drawn through the anterior edge of the eye; infraorbital invagination vertical to posterior part of the eye; posterior opercular edge w-shaped with 2 equally long tips; longitudinal infralateral and suborbital transversal rows of superficial neuromasts are placed in the well-defined deep groove; trunk cross-section behind pectoral fin base half oval with straight ventral side; body granules shallow and inconspicuous; vertical eye diameter 2.6-3.3% of SL; horizontal eye diameter 2.3–2.9% of SL; head length 24.3-28.8% of SL; pectoral-fin length 8.6-9.3% of SL; prepectoral distance 24.4-28.4% of SL; ventral adhesive disc length 17.1-19.3% of SL; caudal-fin length 13.5-15.5% of SL; moderate number of vertebrae for the genus 37-38; pharyngeal jaws with small ceratobranchial 5, having several small conical teeth; nasal bones club-shaped; star-like pigmentation around eyes, body colouration when alive dark with clear stripes visible in less pigmented specimens (Ref. 123696).

Vertebrae: 37 - 38

Inhabits shallow waters (Ref. 10954). It reaches highest abundances in pebble and boulder beaches of less than 0.5 m depth (24 individuals/m2 in Messina), but reported to be found down to 2 m of water depth. It was also observed to occur with Lepadogaster lepadogaster and that males build and guard nests under boulders during spawning season (Ref. 123696),

The blunt-snouted clingfish (Gouania willdenowi) is a species of clingfish found along the western Mediterranean Sea coasts from Spain to Italy. This species grows to a length of 5 centimetres (2.0 in) TL. The blunt-nosed clingfish is a little known species of shallow water along the littoral of the northern Mediterranean from Alicante to Sicily. Its range was formerly thought to extend to Israel and Syria in the east; however this was actually several closely related cryptic species. It can survive out of the water and occurs only among intertidal pebbles and sand.

This species was formerly the only known member of Gouania; however, a 2020 study described three new species and resurrected a synonym of G. willdenowi (G. pigra) to species status. It was described as Lepadogaster willdenowi by Antoine Risso in 1810 from a type locality of Nice, France, it was subsequently placed in the monotypic genus Covania by Giovanni Domenico Nardo in 1833 and this was corrected to Gouania in 1864 by Giovanni Canestrini. The generic name honours the French botanist Antoine Gouan (1733-1821), Nardo's original name Covania being a latinisation of Gouan, while the specific name honours another botanist, the German Carl Ludwig Willdenow (1765-1812).