The male neon goby induces the birth of his offspring by taking the larvae out of the nest, just before sunrise.
In neon gobies, it is the father who chooses the date of hatching of the eggs. A few years ago, this small coral fish, whose name refers to the metallic reflections of its scales, aroused the curiosity of marine biologists from the universities of Boston and Texas (United States). During an experiment carried out in their laboratory, the researchers noticed thatElacatinus colini “spit” larvae from the entrance of its shelter. The fish seemed to them to be a good model to study the role played by the males in the care of the eggs and in the birth of the larvae. This is what they did, and their study, published in the September 14 edition of Proceedings of the Royal Society Bshow “for the first time a case of a father-controlled outbreak in reef fish”according to lead author John Majoris, a researcher at the Institute of Marine Science at the University of Texas at Austin.
Present in the Belize Barrier Reef, the neon goby is…
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