---
title: Smoothfin Blenny (Ecsenius frontalis)
scientific_name: Ecsenius frontalis
common_name: Smoothfin Blenny
taxon: Combtooth blenny
conservation_status: LC - Least Concern
published: 2024-11-19T07:49:53.302Z
updated: 2026-08-17T11:06:21.311Z
tags: Smoothfin Blenny, Ecsenius frontalis, Combtooth blenny, Red Sea, Marine Life, Diving
url: https://redseacreatures.com/taxon/fishes/bony-fishes/combtooth-blenny/smoothfin-blenny
---

# Smoothfin Blenny (*Ecsenius frontalis*)

## Quick facts

- **Group:** Combtooth blenny (*Blenniidae*)
- **Size:** 8 cm
- **Depth:** 3-27 m
- **Diet:** Herbivore
- **Activity:** Diurnal
- **Rarity:** Common
- **Habitat:** Shallow coral blocks and sheltered lagoons
- **Reproduction:** Egg layer
- **Endemic:** Endemic to the Red Sea
- **Conservation status:** LC - Least Concern

## How to recognise it

- stubby blenny perched on coral, propped on its pelvic fins
- two short yellow bands over the eye, present in every color form
- body uniformly brown, solid black, or dark in front and pale behind
- up to 8 cm

One species, several fish. Along a single stretch of reef this blenny turns up uniformly brown, solid black, and dark at the front with a pale rear end, and the forms perch on the same coral blocks next to each other. They are not sexes, ages or subspecies. They are color forms of one animal, and the form a fish carries is fixed.

The mark that does not change is over the eye: two short yellow bands, present in every version. If you can see those, you have this species whatever color the rest of it is.

It is a grazer. The lower jaw carries a comb of fine teeth set loosely in the lip, which is what combtooth blennies are named for, and the fish scrapes a film of algae and detritus off rock with them in short repeated bites, hopping from one perch to the next between mouthfuls.

It lives here and nowhere else: the Red Sea, the gulfs of Aqaba and Suez, and the western end of the Gulf of Aden.

## Also known as

- **English:** smoothfin blenny, Smooth-fin Blenny, twocolour blenny
- **Czech:** slizoun hladkoploutvý

## Scientific synonyms

- *Ecsenius albicaudatus* Lotan, 1970
- *Salarias frontalis* Valenciennes, 1836
- *Salarias nigrovittatus* Rüppell, 1838

## Range

Djibouti, Eritrea, Red Sea

---

*Source: [Red Sea Creatures](https://redseacreatures.com/taxon/fishes/bony-fishes/combtooth-blenny/smoothfin-blenny)*
*Updated: August 17, 2026*