Subterranean Fishes of the World

Country

Types

Only a Holotype was assigned: NMW 31175 50.2mm SL.

Distribution

Southern californian coast (USA), Santa Cruz Island (N) to San Diego (S) (Ahnelt and Scatolin 2003)

Baja california (Mexico) (Eschmeyer and Herald 1983)

Cabrillo National Monument, San Diego, California (Craig and Pondella 2006)

Todos Santos Bay B.C., Mexico (Ruiz-Campos and Hammann 1987)

Ensenada norte de San Simeon Poim, CA. E.U.A. a la Bahfa Magdalena, B.C. Sur, Mexico (Miller and Lea 1972)

Habitat

The relationship between the fish and crustacean host is usually referred to as either a symbiotic relationship or a commensal realtionship (e.g. McCosker 2006), with the following definitions of these terms being:

Symbiosis – A mutually beneficial partnership betweem organisms of different kinds (Chambers Dictionary 2008).

Commensalism – An organism living in partnership or association with another of a different species without affecting or benefiting it (Chamber Dictionary 2008).

It seems clear that, if we accept that the fish gains shelter while the crustacean is neither advantaged or disadvantages by the presence of two fishes in its burrow, we cannot consider it to be symbiosis. It also seems clear that we could use the term commensalism for this situation.

However, there are other terms available that allow a more refined and precise definition of how the two species involved are interrelating.

The term inquilinism (inquiline) is defined as:

Living in the home of, or in close association, of another (Chambers Dictionary 2008), or

The residence of individuals of one species within the nest of another species (Blackwelder and Garoian 1986:469), with the addition of three separate subterms which better define the nature of the association:

Symphile – Welcome guests that make some return to their host

Synechthran – Scavangers or predators tolerated or unsuccessfully challenged in the nest

Synoekete – Indifferently tolerated guests

It is clear that the relationship is not synechthran but it may be either of the other two. Although MacGinitie (1939), the principal authority on these animals, suggests that the fish make no return to the shrimps, he himself gives two examples which are clear, if small scale and possibly insignificant, assistances:

"Though, as has been stated before, the gobies will on occasion attempt to repel the invasion of other burrowing animals which may encroach upon their tunnels, they are not sufficiently aggressive to meet with much success in keeping out other animals. It is their hosts are ever on the alert to repel such invasions." (MacGinitie 1939:492,494).

"The clearing from the burrow of many of the larger particles of food is, so far as I have been able to determine, the only possible benefit that Callianassa may derive from the presence of the blind gobies, that is, the fish by their omnivorous habits clean up most of the material which enters the burrow and is not used as food by the shrimp." (MacGinitie 1939:494).

The latter point is also made by Karplus (2014), a significant authority on symbiotic relationships:

"MacGinitie (1939) often observed C. affinis carrying relative large pieces of organic matter, too large for the shrimp to ingest, and dumping them in front of the fish. The goby which ingested these particles acted as a sanitarian, saving the shrimp the necessity of dumping that material at the burrow entrance. This may be the only activity of the goby that benefits the shrimp, since the fish’s ability to expel intruders is, according to MacGinitie (1939), far below that of the shrimp." (Karplus 2014:312-313).

So the alternative we need to choose between are:

* No return from fish to crustacean the fish is a synoeketic inquiline

* With return from fish to crustacea the fish is a symphilic inquiline.

If we allow the above examples as assistances, even if of not that much help, then certainly the second of these terms is the better one to use. And it is certainly possible that there are other subtle and/or infrequent acts of return which MacGinitie missed, and since his time no-one else has studied this fish in any detail at all.

Systematics

Probably now most realistically placed in the Family Oxudercidae (a synonym of this, which will also be used in some sources, is Gobionellidae) (Nelson et al. 2016).

Thacker (2003): Within the expanded monophyletic gobionelline clade, two smaller clades are present: one containing both Mugilogobius x, Mugilogobius, Gillichthys mirabilis, Typhlogobius californiensis, C. annularis, E. newberryi, A. flavimanus, G. semivestita, P. lidwilli, and the kraemeriid K. cunicularia (clade IIA).

Chakrabarty et al. (2012) show that the nearest relative to T. californiensis (anong the species they tested) is Gillichthys mirabilis. Interestingly both of these species have additional breathing capillaries in the skin and operculum (Zander 2012).

Agorreta et al. (2013) found that Lethops connectens was sister species to a group containing Clevelandia ios, Eucyclogobius newberryi and Lepidogobius lepidus, and that Typhlogobius californiensis was sister to a group of these four. These specie are all in the Acanthogobius lineage of Agorreta et al. (2013).

Biological Notes

This species lives in burrows created by the Ghost Shrimp Neotrypaea biffari (Holthuis 1991) (Crustacea: Decapoda: Callianassidae) ; see below for a number of other names that have been used in the past). The first person to describe the relationship between Typhlogobius and the Crustacean appears to be Eigenmann (1917:175) where he says: "Under the boulders a crawfish-like crustacean has its burrows, and in these burrows lives a blindfish, Typhlogobius Californiensis." Hubbs (1927:287) says: "[Typhlogobius lives] in a most definite situation: namely, beneath stones, in the thus darkened burrows of a peculiar crustacean." It is not until the major study by MacGinitie (1939:489) that we get any idea what this crustacean is when he says: "This goby has lived so long in a burrow under the rocks with Callianassa aftinis Holmes, a shrimp that, like many other fish living in similar circumstances, it is, in the adult sta!ges, both blind and pink, having lost eyes and pigment." and he goes on to provide a detailed account of the habitat shared by the shrimp and the fish.

It is worth quoting Packard on some aspects of the biology of Typhlogobius:

"In his essay on the Fishes of San Diego, Professor Eigenmann briefly refers to and gives four figures (P1. XXIV) of the embryo of Typhlogobius, Mr C. L. Bragg having been fortunate enough to discover the egg in the summer of 1891. "The eyes develop normally, and those of Fig. 4 differ in no way from the eyes of other fish embryos." In this case, then, we have the simplest and clearest possible proof of the descent of this blind fish from individuals with eyes as perfect as those of its congeners. We have been permitted by the Director of the United States National Museum to reproduce Professor Eigenmanns excellent figures on the embryo, which tell the story of degeneration of the eye from simple disease of the organ, the species being exposed to conditions of life strikingly different from those of its family living in the same bay. Before the discovery of the eggs, the youngest individual ever seen is represented in PI. XXIII, fig. 7, its eyes being though small, yet distinct, and "apparently functional." Packard (1894)

DeMartini and SikkelI (2006) say: Known examples of monogamous California marine fishes are few and include a single species of extremely site-attached goby (the blind goby, Typhlogobius californiensis). The blind goby seems to exemplify small-bodied, siteattached, and relatively immobile species for which restricted access to mates has favored the evolution of monogamy. Monogamous pairs of blind gobies exhibit biparental care of demersal eggs within their burrow, and the species is apparently dioecious (MacGinitie 1939).

Museum Holdings

UCLA W 62-92 (cove north of San Simeon Point, identifier unknown, specimen pending accession at SIO, pers. comm. HJ Walker, Oct 2017) (Burton and Lea 2019).

USNM 27466 (I), USNM 34746 (4) (Birdsong et al. 1988)

SIO-87-26 N = 1 (Campos and Hammann ????)