Analysis of Morphological Body Variation of Five Gobiid Fish (Teleostei: Gobioidei) from Intertidal Zone of the Persian Gulf and Gulf of Oman

In this study the morphological body variation in five species of Gobiid fish from the intertidal zone of the Persian Gulf and Gulf of Oman have been investigated using 18 morphometric and also three meristic characters. According to the results, 19 of 21 morphological characters of studied species showed a significant statistical difference and among these species, the only two characters "total length" and "pre anal distance" were not statistically different. The results of linear discriminant analysis (LDA) had separated 24.95% of individuals by using morphological characters of the fish body. Data analysis by principal component analysis (PCA) showed that some of morphological characters could be more determinant in species separation in two first axis (PC1 and PC2) which occasionally are possessed in common between two studied species. On the other hand, calculating the Euclidean distance according to studied morphological characters represented that there are small differences in body shape of some species i.e. Boleophthalmus dussumieri and Scartelaos tenuis among other studied species. The results of this study revealed that studying the morphological characters in gobiid fish body shape using univariate and multivariate analysis could make a new vision in these morphological variations of fish body survival.