---
title: Golden Blenny (Ecsenius midas)
scientific_name: Ecsenius midas
common_name: Golden Blenny
taxon: Combtooth blenny
conservation_status: LC - Least Concern
published: 2024-11-19T10:37:50.589Z
updated: 2026-08-14T11:36:01.991Z
tags: Golden Blenny, Ecsenius midas, Combtooth blenny, Red Sea, Marine Life, Diving
url: https://redseacreatures.com/taxon/fishes/bony-fishes/combtooth-blenny/golden-blenny
---

# Golden Blenny (*Ecsenius midas*)

## Quick facts

- **Group:** Combtooth blenny (*Blenniidae*)
- **Size:** up to 13 cm
- **Depth:** 2-40 m
- **Diet:** Omnivore
- **Activity:** Diurnal
- **Rarity:** Uncommon
- **Habitat:** Drop-offs and slopes with anthias schools
- **Reproduction:** Egg layer, Gonochoric
- **Conservation status:** LC - Least Concern

## How to recognise it

- slender golden-orange blenny with a forked tail
- swims up in the water column among anthias, not perched on rock
- blunt blenny face gives it away at close range
- length up to 13 cm

A golden blenny that has joined the anthias. It leaves the bottom, swims up into a school of them, matches their color and their forked-tail shape, and feeds in the water column alongside them - which is not blenny behavior at all.

The imitation is good enough to fool a diver and, more importantly, the anthias. A blenny that would be conspicuous alone becomes one orange fish among two hundred, and predators that hunt anthias schools have to solve a target-selection problem before they can single it out.

It takes plankton with the school, and it also does what its family does - grazes algae off rock - so the disguise buys it a second way of feeding rather than replacing the first.

Thirteen centimeters (5 in). Look for a fish in an anthias school that has a blunt face and a slightly different swimming rhythm; once you see it, you cannot unsee it.

## Also known as

- **English:** midas blenny, Midas Combtooth Blenny, Persian blenny
- **French:** Blennie de Midas, Blennie midas
- **Italian:** Bavosa coda a lira
- **German:** Goldener Schleimfisch
- **Portuguese:** Blênio-pérsico
- **Dutch:** Midaskamtandslijmvis
- **Czech:** slizoun midas
- **Japanese:** ハナダイギンポ, Hanadaigimpo, Kaeru-uo
- **AF:** Goue blennie
- **DA:** Midas-slimfisk
- **DIV:** Reendhoo funna
- **ET:** Midase nobelimakala, Neoonsilm-kiiklimakala
- **FI:** Kultaluikero
- **HIN:** मिडास ब्लनी
- **TH:** ปลาตั๊กแตนหินแปลงสีส้ม

## Range

Comoros, Indian Ocean, Red Sea, Republic of Mauritius, Seychelles, South Africa

---

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