Milorad Mrakovcic+, Mladen Kerovec+, Stjepan Misetic++ and
Daniela Schneider+
+Department of Zoology, Faculty of Natural Sciences,
Rooseveltov trg 6, 41000 Zagreb, Croatia
++Elektroprojekt, Vukovarska avenija 37, 41000 Zagreb, Croatia
Summary. A new subspecies, Knipowitschia punctatissima croatica, is described on the basis of material from Dalmatia, Croatia. The new subspecies is a close relative of Knipowitschia punctatissima Canestrini, recently redescribed by Gandolfi et al. 1985, endemic to northeastern Italy. These two taxa are similar in appearance: the males have several vertical bars; there are no sensory canals on the head; the presence of suborbital series a and an almost complete lack of scales, which are restricted to an axillary patch. The two subspecies differ in some meristic and numerical characters: Male has 15-18 vertical dark bars along sides, vertebral count (32-33), number of rays in D1(VI), D2(8-9) and C(15). Knipowitschia punctatissima croatica was caught in Polje Jezero, alt. 26 m, in the vicinity of the town of Vrgorac, about 10 km as the crow flies from the sea. The name K. punctatissima croatica was first used in the abstract book of the Symposium on the Conservation of Endangered Freshwater Fish in Europe, Bern, Switzerland, 1994.
Keywords: Gobiid fishes, systematic, zoogeography, Croatia
