New Data on the Sighting of Rare Fish Species of Mediterranean Origin in Romanian Black Sea Waters

Abstract

The need for continuously updating and enriching the array of species hosted by the Constanta Aquarium, section of the Natural Sciences Museum Complex of Constanta, grants the opportunity of a thorough monitoring of changes in the structure of the fish fauna of Romanian marine waters. This monitoring is mainly achieved by closely cooperating with fishermen and fishery enterprises located in the Cape Midia - Vama Veche sector of the Romanian coast. The summer-autumn season of 2016 was characterized by a prolonged drought in Dobrogea and in the entire Danube catchment area, resulting in a decrease of river inputs in the Romanian marine area, more strongly in its central and southern part. The persistence of these marine waters and the drop in pollution by reduced river inflows allowed for the re-occurrence of fish species of Mediterranean origin, which were sighted sporadically in regional fish catches. This paper covers the re-occurrence, in the autumn of 2016, of such allochtonous fish species, with great information gaps in the past 15-20 years.