Tropical Orangespotted Glidergoby in Sydney Harbour

Erik Schlogl has struck a double whammy with this observation.

It's the first record of the species from Sydney Harbour and it's also a massive range extension.

According to the Australian Faunal Directory the southern limit to the distribution of the Orangespotted Glidergoby, Valenciennea puellaris, is One Tree Island, Queensland (23°30'S). Erik's observation at Parsley Bay, Vaucluse, was made over 1100 kilometres south of this.

When asked about his amazing observation, Erik stated, "Well, first of all I'm grateful to Joey DiBattista, @joseph_dibattista, for creating the Marine Biodiversity of southern Sydney Harbour project - prior to this project I never dived Parsley Bay, but it turned out that this is quite a biodiversity hotspot. And this summer brought a lot of tropicals there, especially gobies (two new goby species records for Sydney Harbour, and a third at Camp Cove). So yes, it's always surprising to find a fish out of range, but this year in Sydney Harbour it fits into a pattern."

As Erik said, over the warmer summer months (since the start of December 2022) there have been many range extensions and new records. So far journal posts have been written for only five of these. More are in the pipeline.

• Blue Angelfish out of range
• First record of a Shortbill Spearfish from the South Island of NZ
• Juvenile Grey Demoiselle out of range
• New Glidergoby for New Zealand
• Threespot Humbug out of range

Thank you to goby expert Dr Doug Hoese for confirming the identification of 'Erik's fish'.