The shimofuri goby establishes itself in Flanders
In November 2022, an angler caught two specimens of the shimofuri goby in the Ghent-Terneuzen canal. This catch turned out to be the first report of this species in Europe. The shimofuri goby is a small Asian fish species (max. 12 cm total length), native to Japan, China and South Korea. It probably reached our regions via ballast water of ships. Before its discovery in Flanders, only one population was known outside its natural range, in San Francisco Bay in California. There, the species behaves invasively.
You can recognise the shimofuri goby by its two coloured lines: an orange one on the second dorsal fin and a yellow one on the anal fin. Like any goby species, it has fused pelvic fins that resemble a suckerlike disc.
After a few more reports of catches of shimofuri gobies on waarnemingen.be and waarnemingen.nl, INBO sampled the Ghent-Terneuzen canal in July 2024. The population of this non-native species appeared to be greatly expanded, both in number of occurrence sites and in number of specimens per capture site. We also found shimofuri gobies in the catches of our monitoring network in the Scheldt. This means that this species is undergoing a strong spread in Flanders. By finding both small and larger (sexually mature) specimens, we can conclude that the species has effectively established itself and is self-sustaining.
After the round goby, western tubenose goby and bighead goby, the shimofuri goby is a new invasive fish species in Flanders that may pose a threat to our native benthic fish and other fauna. Further monitoring should reveal how fast and where this species is spreading. At the same time, we want to further investigate the ecology and reproduction of this species.
Hugo Verreycken, Rhea Maesele
Image above: Shimofuri goby with clear orange stripe on second dorsal fin (photo INBO)