First Indications of Habitat Suitability of the Armless Snake Eel Dalophis imberbis (Anguilliformes: Ophichthidae) from Three New Occurrence sites in the Central Mediterranean Sea

The armless snake eel, Dalophis imberbis, is a fossorial rare species; being considered as a non-target fishery resource with elusive behavior, knowledge on its distribution and biology results scarce. This study reports three new documented occurrence records of D. imberbis along the northern and southeastern coastal areas of Sicily (central Mediterranean Sea) during 2025. Specimens were collected at depths ranging from 43 m to an unusually shallow depth of 5.4 m. Environmental parameters have been collected through a multiparametric probe and integrated with products from the Copernicus Marine Service (CMS), providing new insights which highlight the presence of the species in relatively warm (17.6-20.8 °C) and moderately oxygen undersaturated (6.9-8.5 mg/L) waters. A global distributional analysis was performed by aggregating the field data with literature records and datasets from the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF), refining the distribution of the species in the Mediterranean and Atlantic sectors. This work underscores the importance of combining traditional surveys with big-data repositories and remote sensing to monitor rare marine biodiversity.