Chlamydogobius gloveri
Dalhousie Goby
One of six known desert gobies, all in the endemic Australian genus Chlamydogobius and all restricted to isolated Great Artesian Basin springs or similarly cut-off desert waters. Aquarium biology is presumed broadly similar to the widely-kept Chlamydogobius eremius (Desert Goby, covered in its own account above) unless noted otherwise below.
Species Summary
Chlamydogobius gloveri is restricted to the Dalhousie Springs complex in far northern South Australia, where it was found to be the most frequently encountered fish species in 30 of 35 surveyed springs across 7 of the 8 Dalhousie spring groups — a genuinely dominant presence in one of Australia’s premier freshwater-endemism hotspots. It tolerates an extraordinary range of conditions across the different springs and flows it occupies, with recorded water temperatures of 13.0–44.7 °C and an experimentally determined upper thermal tolerance of 43.9 °C for fish acclimated to 36 °C water. A diurnal species, it feeds on filamentous green algae and reaches only about 40 mm.
Compiled for Home of the Rainbowfish from ANGFA sources: N. Armstrong, “Desert gobies Chlamydogobius”, Fishes of Sahul 15, 2001, pp. 740–749.