The arrival of Red Sea Goatfish
A new alien species has arrived to Lampedusa, Sicily: the Red Sea goatfish, Parupeneus forsskali, endemic to the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden. It is not the first time that it has been found in the Mediterranean: its presence was confirmed for the first time in 2012, in Lebanon, and the species then expanded, reaching Tunisia in 2016.
This specimen caught on the island of Lampedusa represents the first discovery of the species in Italian seas.
Fishermen of Lampedusa, who first found it, recognized fish characteristics as new and different from the native red mullets they had just caught. Fishermen act as sentinels of the sea! They froze the specimen and dispatched it to the researchers of ISPRA in Palermo, with whom a fruitful collaboration has been established for decades.
The arrival of non-native species in the Mediterranean Sea is possible thanks to man-made corridors such as the Suez Canal or by human activities, such as marine traffic, aquaculture and aquarium trade. In addition, climate change favors the success of new species due to the higher temperatures of our seas (almost 30 degrees in the Mediterranean in 2024).
Currently, there are no known impacts of the species in the invaded areas, but it is conceivable that it may compete for space and resources with native red mullets, as has already happened with other alien red mullets established in the Mediterranean.
The Institute for Environmental Protection and Research (ISPRA) carries out studies, knowledge generation, monitoring and scientific evaluations, supporting to technical standardization of activities and national policies. Through the development of its information systems, ISPRA provides reliable, science based and transparent information on nature conservation and landscape and territorial systems management. ISPRA also prepares information material on alien, including in the marine environment.
ISPRA researchers renew the invitation to volunteers to report captures and observations of unusual organisms to the institutional email: alien@isprambiente.it and, when possible, to conserve the specimens.