A PRELIMINARY STUDY OF THE ZOOGEOGRAPHY OF THE GOBIOID FISHES OF CHINA

The gobioid fishes of China are represented by 131 species, 54 genera and 4 families. The family Eleotridae is represented by 11 genera and 21 species; Gobiidae by 34 genera and 91 species; Periophthalmidae by 3 genera and 9 species and Taenioididae by 6 genera and 10 species. The families Psammichthyidae known from Indian Ocean; Rhyacichthidae known from Philippines, Indonesia, Australia and Solomon Is.; Bentho-philidae known from Caspian Sea, Sea of Azov and Black Sea, are not represented in our waters.The Chinese gobioid fishes may be grouped in three types, viz., the warm-water, the warm-temperate and the cold-temperate species, the type of cold-water species being absent. The warm-water species are most abundant, having 84 species (64% of the total); the warm-temperate species come next, having 38 species (29%); the cold-temperate species are rather few, with only 9 species (7%).The fresh-water gobioid fishes of China have 23 species, among which the warm-temperate species are predominating in-number, having 17 species (78% of the total), the warm-water and the cold-temperate species are both very few, having only 3 species each (11%). The Chinese marine gobioid fishes amount to 108 species, of which the warm-water species, on the contrary, occupy predomination, with 81 species (75% of the total); the warm-temperate species are reduced to the second place, with 21 species (20%); the cold-temperate species are few, with only 6 species (5%). The South China Sea area possesses the greatest number of 94 species, of which 80 are warm-water species (85%), 14 warm-temperate species (15%), the cold-temperate ones being wanting. The East China Sea area has 37 species, of which 22 are the warm-water species (59.5%); 14 the warm-temperate, the ratio of the latter is however greater, than that of the warm-water species in the South China Sea (37.8% vs. 15%); there is only a single cold-temperate species (2.7%). The Yellow Sea and Pohai possess only 25 species, of which 10 are the warm-temperate species (40%); 9 the warm-water species (36%) and 6 the cold-temperate (24%).The fauna of Chinese gobioid fishes has intimate relations with faunae of the neighbouring countries. There are as many as 62 species occurring in common in China and Indonesia, 56 species in China and Japan, 55 species in China and Philippines and 35 species in China and Korea. There are 4 species confined in distribution to both China and Japan, 3 species to both China and Korea, 2 species to both China and Philippines, and only one species to both China and Indonesia. China has 27 endemic species, Japan 33, Philippines 41, Indonesia 60 and Korea none. Our warm-water species of the South and the East China Sea are generally similar to those of southern Japan, but some of the tropical forms of Indonesia and of Philippines ranging to southern Japan but are not seen in our coast. On the other hand, most of the warm-temperate species distributed in our coast do not. usually extend to Indonesia and Philippines. .Besides, some of the cold-temperate species distributed in the coast of northern Japan and eastern Korea are generally not ranged to our Yellow Sea.