Blenny of some sort?
Posted March 23rd, 2008 by sriegner
This little one was hiding under an old conch shell in a sandy area with occasional coral heads at Pelican Island, BVI on March 12, 2008. Was seen at 37 ft around 9:45 am. it's about 1 3/4" long; when it decided it didn't like our company any more, it started walking away on it's pectoral fins, then finally darted away. Haven't been able to identify it.
Images:
Blenny of some sort
The key to identification is in the top picture. You can see the cirri just above the eye are flat and perpindicular to the body length. Further back on the head near where the dorsal fin starts you can see another pair of flattened perpindicular to body length cirri. These fish are rarely seen, but not necessarily rare in occurence. They are masters of camoflouge and the color variations are quite wide ranging it is a Banded Blenny-Paraclinus fasciatus. Congratulations it is only listed in the database about twenty times. Not sure how to post pictures here so if you send me your email address at Pipehorse@aol.com I will send you other pictures of this species.
Best Fishes
Peter Leahy