Subterranean Fishes of the World

Country

Types

Only a Holotype has been assigned: AMS IA.6175.

Distribution

Type locality: Boat Port Beach, Lindeman Island, Queensland, Australia. Known from the Indo-West Pacific, east Africa to Aldabra, Philippines, Guam, Great Barrier Reef.

Habitat

Lives obligately in tubes of the thalassinidean shrimp Neaxius acanthus. This mode of life is also seen in Typhlogobius californiensis.

Biological Notes

In the original description of this species Whitley (1935:244) made the folowing prescient comments:

"This new genus affords a striking parallel to the blind gobies of California, and the existence of such fishes in Australia has hitherto been unsuspected. Hubbs has described Lethops connectens which resembles the Australian form, but differs in having united ventrals. He regarded Lethops as intermediate in form between tIle normal reef gobies and the San Diego Blind Fish, Typhlogobius californiensis Steindachner, and stated that "...the concomitant degeneration of the eye and increased
differentiation of tactile organs thus marks the ontogenetic as well as the evolutionary line". The integument and its sensory papillae and the eyes of Typhlogobius have been examined in detail by Ritter, and it may be possible to compare the Australian genus with his account when further specimens are forthcoming.
Possibly Austrolethops lives in darkened crustacean burrows. It is interesting to note that when fishes, even of different families or orders, adopt similar modes of life, they come to resemble one another in structure. The Brotulid fish Dinematichthys lives in crevices in the Queenland reefs, and the form of the head, pectoral, and ventral fins and other parts resemble that of Austrolethops."

The views of the second paragraph are exactly why this web site contains three different lists of fishes, all from lightless environments, because they "they come to resemble one another in structure."