Erythrean Fishes on the Mediterranean Coast of Palestine

First record of the Indo-Pacific fish the Jarbua terapon (<i>Terapon jarbua</i>) (Osteichthyes: Terapontidae) in the Mediterranean with remarks on the wide geographical distribution of this species

“…Like most other Lessepsian migrants, it was reported from the Gulf of Suez (Forsskål, 1775;Gruvel and Chabnaud, 1937), and several specimens preserved in the HUJ Collection have not been previously reported. Haas and Steinitz (1947) reported obtaining a specimen of T. jarbua in the Haifa fish market. However, Ben-Tuvia (1966) and Golani et al (2002) concluded that this specimen evidently originated from Aqaba, since there was an active trade of fish from Aqaba to Haifa in the early 1940s.…”

Indo-Pacific cardinal fish in the Mediterranean Sea—new records of Apogon smithi from Turkey and A. queketti from Israel

“…In fact, a delay of at least a decade, in one case as much as 67 years, typically separates the initial Israel and Turkey records (Galil, 2008b). Two early exceptions are the records of Upeneus moluccensis (Bleeker, 1855) and U. pori Ben- Tuvia & Golani, 1989, recorded in 1942from Turkey, and in 1947and 1953 respectively off Israel (Haas & Steinitz, 1947;Kosswig, 1950;Ben Tuvia, 1953). We consider these an artefact, a consequence of the inadequate sampling and ichthyology study efforts conducted in those early years.…”

Taking stock: inventory of alien species in the Mediterranean sea

“…Additional records were published between 1935 and 1939 resulting from the survey of the fishery grounds near Alexandria and were considered ''a welcome contribution to our knowledge of the fauna of that basin in which we find particularly interesting biological conditions on account of ...the communication with the Red Sea by the Suez Canal'' (Balss 1936). The investigations of the continental shelf biota off Israel by the Sea Fisheries Research Station in 1946-1956 resulted in a series of publications that highlighted the extent the Erythrean taxa have been established along the coast (Carmin 1946;Haas and H. Steinitz 1947;Haas 1948Haas , 1951BenTuvia 1953a, b;Gottlieb 1953Gottlieb , 1960Holthuis and Gottlieb 1958;Pérès 1958;Tebble 1959;Oren and H. Steinitz 1959;Lewinsohn and Holthuis 1964). In 1967, a joint program by the Smithsonian Institution, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and the Sea Fisheries Research Station, Haifa, was established to investigate the spread of the Erythrean biota in the Levant (Israel, Cyprus, Rhodes) and its impact on the native biota.…”