New records of Largemouth Black Bass, Micropterus salmoides (Lacépède, 1802) (Pisces, Centrarchidae), in Bulgaria

Abstract

In the present study we report on new localities of Largemouth Black Bass, Micropterus salmoides (Lacé-pède, 1802), detected on the territory of Bulgaria. This invasive predator was observed for the first time in 2018 in a water basin in the capital city of Sofia city (western Bulgaria) and the following monitoring revealed that seven water bodies in the capital were inhabited by adults, subadults, and juvenile specimens. In 2021 and 2022, this spe-cies was captured in water basins in the vicinity of lake Mandra near the city of Burgas (south-eastren Bulgaria). Currently, these sites represent the easternmost localities within the distribution of M. salmoides in the Balkan peninsula and perhaps in continental Europe.

Keywords

• Citizen science
• invasive vertebrates
• limnology