Oldest freshwater goby fossil reshapes understanding of gobioid evolution

Dirnberger M., Bauer E., & Reichenbacher B. (2024). A new freshwater gobioid from the Lower Miocene of Turkey in a significantly amended total evidence phylogenetic framework. Journal of Systematic Palaeontology, 22(1). https://doi.org/10.1080/14772019.2024.2340498

The authors have discovered a new fossil fish species, †Simpsonigobius, from the Lower Miocene of Turkey—making it the oldest known freshwater member of the goby family. This small fish, just 34 mm long, has unique skeletal and ear bone features that link it to modern-day mudskippers and other members of the Oxudercidae family. Using a newly expanded dataset that includes both living and fossil species, researchers placed †Simpsonigobius in the goby family tree and used it to help date key events in gobioid evolution. Their findings challenge the idea that early gobies lived only in freshwater, suggesting instead that their ancestors may have used a mix of habitats. This study is the first to integrate both fossil and living goby species in a fully time-calibrated evolutionary framework.