The current composition of the family Gobiidae Cuvier, 1816 (Actinopterygii) in waters of Ukraine with comments on species distributions

The present paper is devoted to a literature-based retrospective analysis of changes in the species composition of the family Gobiidae of waters of Ukraine since the 1930s. Keys and checklists published earlier cover the fish fauna of separate regions of Ukraine, either only of river basins or of coastal waters of the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov. The first checklist of fishes of Ukraine was published by academician A. M. Nikolsky in 1930 including both freshwater and marine species known in that time. In that work, the family Gobiidae includes 23 species of 7 genera. In the paper by D. A. Tretyakov (1947), 23 species of 10 genera of true gobies are listed for waters of Ukraine with some changes in the species composition. In one of the volumes of the series “Fauna of Ukraine. Fishes” devoted to true gobies (Smirnov 1986), data on 25 species of 11 genera are presented. According to the data by Yu. Movchan (2011), the composition of the family largely expanded comprising 33 species of 13 genera, including 5 marine species that were recorded in that time in coastal waters of the Crimea as well as 1 newly described species from the Chorna River. Later, five more marine species, known earlier only in the Mediterranean Basin, were found in waters of Ukraine, as well as another species in the Sea of Azov. It was established that the current fish fauna of the family Gobiidae of Ukraine includes 38 species of 17 genera, according to the literature and data from the fish collection of the National Museum of Natural History NAS of Ukraine (Kyiv). The geographic range and distribution of each species in waters of Ukraine are presented. The fauna of true gobies of Ukraine is composed of species of the Ponto-Caspian (52.6 %) and Atlantic-Mediterranean (47.4 %) faunal complexes. Endemics (4 species) are highlighted along with recent intruders of the Black Sea that have appeared here since the early 2000s (8 species); the time of appearance for 2 species remains unknown.