---
title: Chestnut Blenny (Cirripectes castaneus)
scientific_name: Cirripectes castaneus
common_name: Chestnut Blenny
taxon: Combtooth blenny
conservation_status: LC - Least Concern
published: 2024-11-18T12:40:24.306Z
updated: 2026-08-14T11:36:02.129Z
tags: Chestnut Blenny, Cirripectes castaneus, Combtooth blenny, Red Sea, Marine Life, Diving
url: https://redseacreatures.com/taxon/fishes/bony-fishes/combtooth-blenny/chestnut-blenny
---

# Chestnut Blenny (*Cirripectes castaneus*)

## Quick facts

- **Group:** Combtooth blenny (*Blenniidae*)
- **Size:** up to 13 cm
- **Depth:** 0-15 m
- **Diet:** Herbivore
- **Activity:** Diurnal
- **Rarity:** Common
- **Habitat:** Shallow reef and surge-swept rock
- **Reproduction:** Egg layer, Gonochoric
- **Conservation status:** LC - Least Concern

## How to recognise it

- chestnut-brown body, darker in front, with fine pale spots on the head
- fringe of short filaments across the nape
- wedged into a hole with only the head showing when disturbed
- length up to 13 cm

A chestnut-brown blenny of shallow surge-swept rock, spotted on the head and fringed across the nape, thirteen centimeters (5 in) long and almost always somewhere it can vanish into within one hop.

Blennies have no swim bladder. That single fact explains almost everything about how they live: they cannot hover, they sink when they stop, and swimming any distance is expensive - so they perch, hop, dart, and organize their whole lives around a hole they can reach in one movement.

This one grazes algal turf off rock in fast pecks, holding position in surge that would push a similar-sized fish off the reef, using thickened pelvic fins as feet.

When it does retreat, it reverses in tail-first and blocks the entrance with its head, which is both a door and a viewing position. That head sticking out of a hole is what most photographs of blennies are.

## Also known as

- **English:** chestnut blenny, Muzzled Rockskipper, chestnut eyelash-blenny
- **Italian:** Bavosa castagna
- **German:** Kastanien-Kammzähner
- **Spanish:** Blenio Vede
- **Portuguese:** Blênio-do-coral-castanho
- **Dutch:** Kastanjekamtand-slijmvis
- **Czech:** slizoun hnědý
- **Japanese:** タテガミカエルウオ, Tategamikaeruuo
- **Chinese:** 頰紋頸鬚䲁
- **FIJ:** lokuca

## Scientific synonyms

- *Cirrhipectes castaneus* (Valenciennes, 1836)
- *Cirripectes gibbifrons* Smith, 1947
- *Cirripectes reticulatus* Fowler, 1946
- *Cirripectus castaneus* (Valenciennes, 1836)
- *Cirripectus gibbifrons* Smith, 1947
- *Salarias castaneus* Valenciennes, 1836

## Range

Comoros, Indian Ocean, Kenya, Madagascar, Mozambique, New Zealand, Red Sea, Republic of Mauritius, Seychelles, South Africa, Tanzania

---

*Source: [Red Sea Creatures](https://redseacreatures.com/taxon/fishes/bony-fishes/combtooth-blenny/chestnut-blenny)*
*Updated: August 14, 2026*