{"id":39610,"date":"2013-05-12T11:28:57","date_gmt":"2013-05-12T10:28:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/focusingonwildlife.com\/news\/?p=39610"},"modified":"2024-06-17T14:39:03","modified_gmt":"2024-06-17T13:39:03","slug":"the-inter-tidal-mudskippers-of-kuwait","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/focusingonwildlife.com\/news\/the-inter-tidal-mudskippers-of-kuwait\/","title":{"rendered":"The Inter-tidal Mudskippers of Kuwait"},"content":{"rendered":"

There are often quiet times in between coastal birding, especially during low-tide when the sea appears to fade away in the shimmering distance.<\/p>\n

However, if you look more closely on the mud flats during low tide, you will find some interesting species and for this post these are inter-tidal Mudskippers; a fascinating species in their own right that are adapted for terrestrial environments and an amphibious life that is almost unrivaled.<\/p>\n

In Kuwait, we have 3 species of inter-tidal Mudskippers and in this year I have been fortunate to find and photograph all 3. These gobies are amphibious air-breathers that livepredominantly on inter-tidal mud flatsand prove that fish can indeed walk.<\/p>\n

The most common and largest isBoleophthalmus dussumieri. ‘Boleophthalmus’depicts the capability of these fishs to rapidly raise their eyes above the level of their orbits, as if they were ejected out of their orbits<\/p>\n

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Boleophthalmus dussumieri_4383<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Boleophthalmus dussumieri_4343<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Boleophthalmus dussumieri_4358<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Boleophthalmus dussumieri_4381<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Periophthalmus waltoni (Walton’s Mudskipper) is smaller, but found together with dussumieri. I found that males in all species can be quite territorial and aggressive when defending their hole. ‘Periophthalmus’ refers to the wide visual field of these species<\/p>\n

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Periophthalmus waltoni_4371<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Periophthalmus waltoni_4350<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"\"<\/a>
Periophthalmus waltoni_4354<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Periophthalmus waltoni_4367<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The last and one that took me the longest to find isScartelaos tenuis (Slender Mudskipper); ‘Scartelaos’ probably refers tothe typical tail-stand of males during courtship.<\/p>\n

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Scartelaos tenuis<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"\"<\/a>
Scartelaos tenuis_BoubIsl_7545<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Scartelaos tenuis_BoubIsl_7551<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Scartelaos tenuis_BoubIsl_7555<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

If you would like to learn more about this fascinating family, you can find all the information you need on http:\/\/www.mudskipper.it\/index.html<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There are often quiet times in between coastal birding, especially during low-tide when the sea appears to fade away in the shimmering distance. However, if you look more closely on the mud flats during low tide, you will find some interesting species and for this post these are inter-tidal Mudskippers; a fascinating species in their […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":398,"featured_media":2192983,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/focusingonwildlife.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/05\/Boleophthalmus-dussumieri_4383.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"The Inter-tidal Mudskippers of Kuwait","footnotes":""},"categories":[6984,5],"tags":[4461,4464,4463,3904,4462,4460],"class_list":["post-39610","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blogs","category-wildlife","tag-air-breathers","tag-fishes","tag-gobies","tag-kuwait","tag-mudskippers","tag-tidal-mud-flats"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusingonwildlife.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39610","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusingonwildlife.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusingonwildlife.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusingonwildlife.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/398"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusingonwildlife.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39610"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/focusingonwildlife.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39610\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusingonwildlife.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2192983"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusingonwildlife.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39610"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusingonwildlife.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=39610"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusingonwildlife.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39610"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}