A blunt, bullet-headed blenny of the reef flat, living in water so shallow that it is regularly left in a puddle when the tide drops.
That is not an accident. Rockskippers work the intertidal because almost nothing else can: the food is a thick algal turf nobody competes for, and the predators that would eat a 14 cm fish cannot follow into ten centimeters of water. The price is a habitat that heats, dries and disappears twice a day, and the fish deals with it by knowing exactly where the holes are.
Males develop a raised crest on the head and defend a crevice, and the eggs are laid inside it and guarded by the male.
They move by hopping - a flick of the body against the tail - and they do it as readily on wet rock as in water. Watch a reef flat at low tide for a few minutes and the rock starts moving.
- rounded bullet-shaped head with a steep vertical front
- mottled gray-brown, males with a raised crest on the head
- in a few centimeters of water on the reef flat
- length up to 14 cm
Why it's threatened
Blenniella periophthalmus is of no interest to the fisheries industry, and is rarely used in the aquarium trade (Burgess et. al 1990, Springer and Williams 1994). This species faces no major threats at this time.
Threat classification from the IUCN Red List.
