---
title: Rippled Rockskipper (Istiblennius edentulus)
scientific_name: Istiblennius edentulus
common_name: Rippled Rockskipper
taxon: Combtooth blenny
conservation_status: LC - Least Concern
published: 2024-11-19T11:53:36.886Z
updated: 2026-08-14T11:36:01.857Z
tags: Rippled Rockskipper, Istiblennius edentulus, Combtooth blenny, Red Sea, Marine Life, Diving
url: https://redseacreatures.com/taxon/fishes/bony-fishes/combtooth-blenny/rippled-rockskipper
---

# Rippled Rockskipper (*Istiblennius edentulus*)

## Quick facts

- **Group:** Combtooth blenny (*Blenniidae*)
- **Size:** up to 16 cm
- **Depth:** 0-5 m
- **Diet:** Herbivore
- **Activity:** Diurnal
- **Rarity:** Common
- **Habitat:** Intertidal rock, tide pools and the splash zone
- **Reproduction:** Egg layer, Gonochoric
- **Conservation status:** LC - Least Concern

## How to recognise it

- blunt-faced blenny with a fringe of tentacles above each eye
- mottled brown-gray with fine dark ripples across the flank
- out of the water as often as in it, clinging to wet rock
- length up to 16 cm

A blenny that spends much of its life out of the sea. Rockskippers live in the splash zone, and this one climbs onto wet rock above the water line, holds on with its pelvic fins, grazes algae, and skips back in when a wave or a threat arrives.

Breathing out of water is the trick behind it. The fish carries water in its gill chambers and takes up oxygen through the skin as well, which buys it long enough on the rock to feed where nothing else can reach. It has to stay damp - the same animal in a dry patch is in trouble within minutes.

The eyes are set high and move independently, and it can see perfectly well in air, which most fish cannot.

Sixteen centimeters (6 in). Look for it in the last few centimeters of water at the edge of a reef flat, or above it: a tide pool with nothing in it usually has three of these sitting on the rim.

## Also known as

- **English:** rippled rockskipper, Coral Blenny, rockskipper
- **Arabic:** Arfaj
- **French:** Blennie à rides, Blennie ridée
- **Italian:** Bavosa sdentata
- **Portuguese:** Blênio-banguela
- **Czech:** slizoun bezzubý
- **Japanese:** ニセカエルウオ, Kaeru-uo, Nisekaeruuo
- **Chinese:** 暗紋蛙鳚
- **Russian:** Узорчатый истибленниус
- **KO:** 대강베도라치
- **MAH:** Jibalan
- **MAL:** Kakkadan, കക്കാടന്
- **TAH:** 'o'opu

## Scientific synonyms

- *Alticops edentulus* (Forster & Schneider, 1801)
- *Blennius cinereus* Castelnau, 1875
- *Blennius edentulus* Forster & Schneider, 1801
- *Blennius truncatus* Forster, 1801
- *Istiblennius edentululus* (Forster & Schneider, 1801)
- *Istiblennius enosimae* (Jordan & Snyder, 1902)
- *Istilbennius edentulus* (Forster & Schneider, 1801)
- *Salarias atratus* MacLeay, 1882
- *Salarias atrimarginatus* Fowler, 1946
- *Salarias azureus* Seale, 1906
- *Salarias diproktopterus* Bleeker, 1857
- *Salarias fluctatus* Fowler, 1945
- *Salarias garmani* Jordan & Seale, 1906
- *Salarias gilberti* Bryan & Herre, 1903
- *Salarias insulae* Ogilby, 1899
- *Salarias marcusi* Bryan & Herre, 1903
- *Salarias melanocephalus* Bleeker, 1849
- *Salarias quadricornis* Valenciennes, 1836
- *Salarias rechingeri* Steindachner, 1906
- *Salarias sindonis* Jordan & Seale, 1906
- *Salarias sumatranus* Bleeker, 1851
- *Scartella enosimae* (Jordan & Snyder, 1902)
- *Scartichthys basiliscus* Fowler, 1904
- *Scartichthys enosimae* Jordan & Snyder, 1902

## Range

Comoros, Djibouti, Eritrea, Federal Republic of Somalia, Indian Ocean, Kenya, Madagascar, Mozambique, Red Sea, Republic of Mauritius, Seychelles, South Africa, Tanzania

---

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