Blenny id?

[happyhourhero]

i have always called this a seaweed Blenny (Parablennius marmoreus), assuming I just had a dark one but as time goes on, I am not 100% convinced.

Anyone have any thoughts on this one? Collected in northern Gulf of Mexico off a seawall. Has been in my system for over a year and has maintained the same coloration. Looks black but if you look close, there is a mottled dark maroon pattern.

@Chasmodes

 

[Humblefish]

Google Scartella cristata and see if you think it matches.

 

[happyhourhero]

Google Scartella cristata and see if you think it matches.

Negative. I have two Molly millers as well. This one is quite different. Here is one of the Scartella Cristata

 

[Chasmodes]

My guess would be "Hypsoblennius ionthas", due to the orange spots, maybe a female because the cirri are similar to a Hypsoblennius hentz female, and this species is common in your area.

Although, it could be perhaps Hypleurochilus geminatus because of the "crested" head shape? The crested blennies are colorful, but I didn't think that they had that many red spots. These are also found in your area too, supposedly.

There are a couple other Hypleurochilus species in the Caribbean, so maybe they might stray to your area? They show a lot more red spots.

Awesome fish to have though!

 

[happyhourhero]

My guess would be "Hypsoblennius ionthas", due to the orange spots, maybe a female because the cirri are similar to a Hypsoblennius hentz female, and this species is common in your area.

Although, it could be perhaps Hypleurochilus geminatus because of the "crested" head shape? The crested blennies are colorful, but I didn't think that they had that many red spots. These are also found in your area too, supposedly.

There are a couple other Hypleurochilus species in the Caribbean, so maybe they might stray to your area? They show a lot more red spots.

Awesome fish to have though!

Thank you! I believe the geminatus is the closest match.

 

[Chasmodes]

You're welcome! How big is your geminatus? How long have you had it?

They sometimes stray to my neck of the woods. Maybe I'll get lucky and catch one some day!!!!

 

[happyhourhero]

It is maybe 2.5-3" I have had it a little over a year. I would say this is a reef safe with caution fish. Mine went through a phase of munching acans and it regularly takes bites from my pizza anemone. I thought it was going to be a big problem but neither the acans or the anemone ever had any long term ill effects.

 

[Josh Carter]

Hi There,

New to the forum. Just thought I'd chime in here. If caught in the northern Gulf of Mexico this is most likely a Featherduster blenny (Hypleurochilus multifilis) but could also be a Zebratail blenny (H. caudovittatus), but that requires a pic of the caudal fin which will feature 3-5 vertical black strips rather than the mottled appearance of H. multifilis. Check out this very useful site ran by Ross Robertson at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute - http://biogeodb.stri.si.edu/caribbean/en/pages. I work in a blenny genomics lab in Texas and I've sampled across the northern gulf of mexico collecting all blennies and gobies and H. multifilis is the most common in the northern gulf.

The Hypleurochilus genus can be a tricky one but distributions dictate this to be H. multifilis. Very similar in appearance to H. geminatus but that fish is restricted to the east coast. ID them most times requires a scope and the various color morphs and life stages can complicate things. If you ever have a chance, check out the canines on the Hypleurochilus blennies, they're quite prominent similar to fang blennies. A unique attribute among the blenniids of North America.

Cheers and Happy Hunting!
Josh

 

[Chasmodes]

Very interesting Josh, thank you!

 

[Josh Carter]

My pleasure. I've gotten to know these fish pretty well being in the water with them so much. They're quite an interesting group and exhibit a variety of different characters and seem to dominate their habitat when present from what I have seen. If you're interested, another fish not well known that I stumbled across in great number on the Florida panhandle is the Sailfin blenny (Lupinoblennius nicholsi). You won't find a picture of them on the web except for the original illustration from the species description. And you can't tell from my picture I took of a male, but that dorsal fin is as high at the length of the body, quite spectacular. Hence the "highfin" name. You can see this in the illustration though.

A very interesting and quite beautiful blenny in my opinion and they can be quite abundant when present live alongside Hypleurochilus on oyster reefs and when they are very small they dwell in empty barnacle shells. I had to do a doubletake under water when I saw them in the barnacles, very good camouflage. And like Chasmodes they have that unique tan stripe down the center of the back and head and compressed body form to appear like a live feeding oyster.

Blennies Rule!

 

[Chasmodes]

Blennies Rule!

Absolutely!

Your pics are excellent!

That's very cool indeed. I was wondering about the role of the stripe on Chasmodes. Fascinating, and makes perfect sense.

By the way, have you encountered Hypsoblennius hentz in your neck of the woods? I see that the range on the website extends to Texas. I used to have a female H. hentz in my old tank that lived quite a while before getting in a fight with a triggerfish and lost. Tough little buggers. That fish might have been the coolest one that I've kept to date.

 

[Josh Carter]

Thanks! I've been trying to prefect my pictures. My favorite thus far is of a breeding male Chasmodes longimaxilla I caught in Christmas Bay, TX. By far the biggest Chasmodes I've seen to date and all from that one location. Not sure why though. Many approached the record length at 8 cm. The reason for the head stripe isn't mentioned in the literature, but it's my best guess because when you're under water with them and they're in the oyster it's stunning how well they resemble a live oyster. It breaks up they're figure and I suppose the highfins have employed a similar tactic as both dwell inside the oysters at a larger size.

As for H. hentz. A very very cool blenny and honestly one on my bucket list to see and catch for a few years until this past October. To answer your question, yes they are certainly down here. I captured one on some artificial oyster reef in Rockport, TX. Chasmodes were so abundant that they were swimming over top one another. Among them a few freckled blennies and the 1 hentz. I was stunned to see it and they are quite large themselves. Never even caught one dipnetting the jetties along the Texas coast either. They're probably restricted to the reef and mud bottoms for the most part. The freckleds (Hypsoblennius ionthas) appear to more abundant than hentz in Texas as well. I catch ionthas all the time but just haven't seen or caught hentz until then. Not sure is you're aware about H. ionthas but there is rather distinct dimorphism and I had long thought the male ionthas were hentz until I did my proper homework to find that ionthas males look so different from.

That's a bummer about yours though. I don't see a blenny contending much with a trigger. I'd like to find more and maybe have a small one in my oyster reef tank.

 

[Chasmodes]

Excellent!

Much of the literature, including fishbase maps, show Chasmodes bosquianus distributions along the Atlantic Coast and from the Northern Gulf Coast and then to the West. The link that you cited above shows distinct species ranges, from C. bosquianus to the East, C. saburrae along both sides of the Central Florida Coasts, and C. longimaxilla from the Gulf Coast of Florida to the West. Have you found any of the other Chasmodes species in your locale other than C. longimaxilla? How much do the species populations overlap? Have you found evidence of hybrids?

Jeez, sorry if I have so many questions. Also, HHH, sorry for hijacking your thread.

Thanks much Josh for letting me pic your brain, and for sharing your pics!!!! I'd like to hear more about your oyster reef tank.

 

[Josh Carter]

No problem at all, I'm always happy to share with people who love fish especially blennies. So the deal with Chasmodes is first that Jeff Williams, fish collections manager at the Smithsonian did his Master's work on Chasmodes and he discovered that what was once thought to be C. bosquianus in the south was actually a different species altogether, which would make sense because C. saburrae splits the ranges of the other two and on an evolutionary time scale that would most certainly split the one continuous distribution of C. bosquianus into the two species we see today - bosquianus and longimaxilla. We don't when this happened or what even took place to facilitate this split but it has been suggested that during the last glacial period much of Florida was underwater and southern Florida was actually an island with the Suwanee straits or Gulf Trough during the Paleogene. It is suggested that C. saburrae speciated from a common ancestor of the group - perhaps the species that gave rise to bosquianus and saburrae - on the florida island and remerged to have secondary contact with the other two species once peninsular Florida came to connect back with the continental united states. That's one hypothesis anyway.

Now the interesting thing, and the basis for my research, is that the populations of C. saburrae and C. bosquianus on the Atlantic coast meet at a common phylogeographic break right about at Cape Canaveral. This is a dividing line for many temperature and tropical species and Chasmodes are no different. It's important to note that the two species do not overlap in anyway. It's like a line in the sand, the tropical saburrae to the south and temperature bosquianus to the north.

On the other hand, you have the eastern populations of C. longimaxilla and western pops of C. saburrae, and this is where things get interesting, in which case overlap in a secondary contact zone meaning that the two species were once "together" then split and now reappear together as two separate species, but still closely related enough to where interesting things can happen. This contact zone, also a documented suture zone where many sister species ranges overlap, extends from Pensacola to Chandeleur Sound of Louisiana. So it's pretty extensive. Williams observed something interesting going on. You probably know that all three species can inhabit oysters or seagrass. Well, in the contact zone, mobile bay to be more specific, Williams noted that longimaxilla segregated to oyster reef and saburrae to seagrass. This is what's called "character displacement", basically the two fish are displacing each other to the two habitats so they presumably don't compete for the same resources. Williams also noted that as you venture closer and into the suture zone, the jaw of longimaxilla gets longer also presumably a feeding response to perhaps a more restrictive or specialist diet. I am studying the genetic basis for this if any can be uncovered which it should be.

I have yet to sample between Texas and Mobile Bay, so that's what the next field season is for. I did happen to sample Pensacola and found both saburrae and longimaxilla on reef and only saburrae in seagrass, granted I only caught 1 longimaxilla on the reef and lots of saburrae. When I moved to mobile bay I caught two longimaxilla on the reef. The thing is oyster and seagrass habitat have taken a huge hit since 1983 when Williams did his work so it's becoming more and more difficult to access these habitats. The fish are common but there habitats are reduced. It may be why I find them in such high densities at time, well above what the literature suggests from old studies but that's unclear.

I see you're in Maryland? Have you caught C. bosquianus in the Chesapeake?

As for my oyster tank, I just got it up and going this past week. it's just a 10 gallon with a couple of oyster cultches I built from oyster shells. I've had a couple of reef tanks going for a couple of years now but I recently decided I wanted to have a tank with my favorite fish and one that resemble its natural habitat. Using caulerpa prolifera to mimic sea grass and keep the algae down and off the oyster shells. I have 1 small female longimaxilla in there now but plan to add a couple more along with a freckled blenny and some naked gobies to round out the fish I typically see on the reefs around here. Probably a couple peppermint shrimp and a snapping shrimp which I can collect here to add some color and movement. The chasmodes are the feature of the tank though.

 

[Josh Carter]

Oh and as for the hybrids, I have not personally seen any, but Williams did observed that longimaxilla and saburrae will hybridize in captivity. He just had some in a tank to see what would happen but no scientific study into this. If they displace each other they probably don't hybridize much if at all.

 

[Chasmodes]

I see you're in Maryland? Have you caught C. bosquianus in the Chesapeake?

Thanks Josh, awesome stuff man!

Yes, I've caught both C. bosquianus and Hypsoblennius hentz. Supposedly, both can be caught throughout the Bay. All of the ones that I've caught were near Point Lookout. I've seen underwater videos and pics of anglers and crabbers catching or seeing C. bosquianus at other locations. I have access to some really good private collecting spots now that I have yet to try. I'm curious about the interactions of the two species. Just about anything on-line that I can find suggest that both are associated with oyster reefs. I'm not sure about the density of populations of each though. So, collecting for my tank might reveal some of that. So far, I've caught far more C. bosquianus than I have H. hentz, but that could be just the one spot that I have sampled.

I too have started an oyster reef tank, currently in the build stage, only I started this project several years back and had it stall due to lack of funds. I built a series of oyster cultches into a reef so that I can easily remove them for maintenance if I have to. That tank is a 101g cubish tank. That said, I'm in the process of working with an LFS to order all of my equipment and get the fish tank finally set up. It looks like, if all goes well, that I'll be able to collect by May or June. I didn't want to post my build thread on here yet until I was able to get the project moving. It's my dream tank of my favorite species. I guess I should start a catch up build thread on here now that I'm ready to roll on this project.

It's interesting how we have such similar themes and interests at different evolutionary stages!

Oh yeah, a while back you asked about my niger trigger, H. hentz fight. I came home from work one day to see it going on. I don't know what led up to it, but I suspect the blenny was chasing the trigger away from his favorite roost, as he always did, and the trigger had enough and attacked. The trigger was only 4" long, and the blenny about the same length. A bite mark behind the left pelvic fin is what did the blenny in. The trigger eventually went blind and starved to death due to it's wounds. I saw the blenny bite the trigger's eye before I separated them, so I assume that it happened to both eyes, because both were very cloudy after that and became infected. Other than a fish eating another one a couple times early in my tank's life, that was the first and only fight to the death that I've witnessed in one of my tanks.

 

[happyhourhero]

Good stuff guys. Josh- If you are ever in Pensacola again, there is incredible blenny diversity on the pilings of the Pensacola Beach Pier in the gulf around all the barnacles.

The one in this thread, which to me is Charlie employs the services of the cleaner shrimp often which is funny to see. My other blennies wont get near it.

 

[Josh Carter]

Good stuff guys. Josh- If you are ever in Pensacola again, there is incredible blenny diversity on the pilings of the Pensacola Beach Pier in the gulf around all the barnacles.

The one in this thread, which to me is Charlie employs the services of the cleaner shrimp often which is funny to see. My other blennies wont get near it.

Thanks for the heads up about Pensacola! Might have to try that if I get a chance to go back. I'd certainly like to collect a few more saburrae. I visited back last July and had very good success with Chasmodes. On my way to St. Petersburg and the Keys, I returned this past December and checked the same spot again for giggles and found that all of the Chasmodes had vacated the site likely due to the cold. I've saw this with C. saburrae down in the keys so they must be sensitive to large temperature change and perhaps move to deeper seagrass water using the seagrasses as a safe highway to avoid predators. Our Texas chasmodes stay on the reefs all year long. I did find really good number of saburrae at St. petersburg and Bonita Springs so I'm not sure why some reefs are vacated and some are not. The site in Pensacola is oddly enough the Pensacola Beach RV Resort. there's a dead reef over grown with macroalgae and it host large numbers of chasmodes and others during the summer. The fishing piers right next to it host Lupinoblennius, Hypleurochilus and Scartella.

The peppermint shrimp we have here don't seem to "clean" as other members of there genus Lysmata. It's just your typical L. wurdemanni you find commonly sold and an occasional L. hochi here and there which I think are a very attractive species themselves. I'll try to get some L. hochi and post pics of them. They're mostly decorative and just add that bit of red color to mix things up. They will keep an aiptasia population down if they're small, otherwise the aiptasia eat the shrimp. Not sure if blennies really bother with cleaner shrimp or not. It would be interesting to know though.

Cheers!

 

[Josh Carter]

It's interesting how we have such similar themes and interests at different evolutionary stages!

Wow, I'm surprised the hentz was able to get some punches on the trigger. Blennies always surprise. That's a sad ending to lose both though. It's always a bit of a struggle at times to ensure tank mates are compatible long term.

I'm looking forward to seeing how your tank turns out. With a tank that size you can load it with a lot of life and a number of full size Chasmodes. Probably get some breeding going on too. I've wanted to breed and attempt to hybridize them to study that aspect since I began studying them. Do you already have a livestock budget? What are you going to stock it with along with the Chasmodes? If you would like some blennies or inverts from down south I'd be happy to collect some for you. I can get a lot of things pretty easy in Galveston.

I'd like to get up there this summer to collect some bosquianus if I can afford to but that'll have to be after I get my secondary contact zone. Question to ya, how would you feel about collecting some fish for my lab? We target 15-30 individuals from each location we collect from and if you're willing I can provide the materials to prepare the fish. Unfortunately, we must euthanize the fish to collect tissue for genetics and use the specimen as a voucher for measurements and photos, but with the information from them we can further understand these fish and have the sequences available on a public database to use by other researchers here and around the globe. You'd be doing me a huge favor by helping out and you would receive acknowledgement in any publications that use your samples. If you're interested let me know and we can talk details!

Cheers,
Josh

 

[Chasmodes]

Sure, count me in! Just shoot me a pm about the details. I mainly collect when it warms up. They're too deep for me right now.

As far as my stocking goes, it's just Chesapeake Bay critters for me for this tank. C. bosquianus, H. hentz if I'm lucky, naked gobies, skilletfish, maybe a hogchoker and a few killifish or sheephead minnows. Once the tank is well established, I may keep seahorses in the fuge if I'm lucky to catch them.

However, I might be able to talk my wife into a Gulf blenny tank Also, I'd love to keep some H. invemar in a nano since they don't get very big.