The seaweed blenny (''Parablennius marmoreus'') is a species of combtooth blenny found in

coral reef A coral reef is an underwater ecosystem characterized by reef-building corals. Reefs are formed of colonies of coral polyps held together by calcium carbonate. Most coral reefs are built from stony corals, whose polyps cluster in groups. Co ...

s in the western

Atlantic Ocean The Atlantic Ocean is the second-largest of the world's five oceans, with an area of about . It covers approximately 20% of Earth's surface and about 29% of its water surface area. It is known to separate the " Old World" of Africa, Europe ...

along the coasts of

New York New York most commonly refers to: * New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York * New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States New York may also refer to: Film and television * '' ...

Bermuda ) , anthem = "God Save the King" , song_type = National song , song = " Hail to Bermuda" , image_map = , map_caption = , image_map2 = , mapsize2 = , map_caption2 = , subdivision_type = Sovereign state , subdivision_name = , e ...

the Bahamas The Bahamas (), officially the Commonwealth of The Bahamas, is an island country within the Lucayan Archipelago of the West Indies in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic. It takes up 97% of the Lucayan Archipelago's land area and is home to ...

, also in the

Gulf of Mexico The Gulf of Mexico ( es, Golfo de México) is an oceanic basin, ocean basin and a marginal sea of the Atlantic Ocean, largely surrounded by the North American continent. It is bounded on the northeast, north and northwest by the Gulf Coast of ...

, south to southern

Brazil Brazil ( pt, Brasil; ), officially the Federative Republic of Brazil (Portuguese: ), is the largest country in both South America and Latin America. At and with over 217 million people, Brazil is the world's fifth-largest country by area ...

. This species reaches a length of TL.

Description

The seaweed blenny has a blunt head, a beak-like snout and a long, slender body. It grows to a maximum length of about . The mouth contains about forty comb-like incisors and above the eyes there are tufts of branched

cirri Giovanni Battista Cirri (1 October 1724 – 11 June 1808) was an Italian cellist and composer in the 18th century. Biography Cirri was born in Forlì in the Emilia-Romagna Region of Italy. He had his first musical training with his brother ...

(slender, fleshy structures). The gill slits are continuous across the throat. The dorsal fin has twelve spines and eighteen soft rays, the anal fin has two spines and nineteen or twenty soft rays and the tail fin is rounded. The color is somewhat variable, being some shade of gold, green, tan or rust, blotched at regular intervals with dark brown mottling. The top of the head is bronze and there is a dark stripe starting above the eye, broadening above the pectoral fin and gradually becoming fainter towards the caudal peduncle. Some individuals have a blue spot near the front of the dorsal fin. The fish can adapt its coloration to suit its surroundings in order to

camouflage Camouflage is the use of any combination of materials, coloration, or illumination for concealment, either by making animals or objects hard to see, or by disguising them as something else. Examples include the leopard's spotted coat, the ...

itself. The border of the anal fins and the underside of the fish are whitish.

Distribution and habitat

The seaweed blenny is native to shallow waters in the western Atlantic Ocean. Its range extends from New York southwards to Brazil, and includes the Caribbean Sea, the Gulf of Mexico, Bermuda and the Bahamas at depths down to about . A typical habitat is among

limestone Limestone ( calcium carbonate ) is a type of carbonate sedimentary rock which is the main source of the material lime. It is composed mostly of the minerals calcite and aragonite, which are different crystal forms of . Limestone forms whe ...

boulders and in scoops and basins where the rock surface is covered with a mat of

algae Algae (; singular alga ) is an informal term for a large and diverse group of photosynthetic eukaryotic organisms. It is a polyphyletic grouping that includes species from multiple distinct clades. Included organisms range from unicellular mic ...

sea fans Alcyonacea, or soft corals, are an order of corals. In addition to the fleshy soft corals, the order Alcyonacea now contains all species previously known as "gorgonian corals", that produce a more or less hard skeleton, though quite different f ...

and other

invertebrate Invertebrates are a paraphyletic group of animals that neither possess nor develop a vertebral column (commonly known as a ''backbone'' or ''spine''), derived from the notochord. This is a grouping including all animals apart from the chordate ...

s. It is also found on reefs, in

seagrass meadow A seagrass meadow or seagrass bed is an underwater ecosystem formed by seagrasses. Seagrasses are marine (saltwater) plants found in shallow coastal waters and in the brackish waters of estuaries. Seagrasses are flowering plants with stems and ...

s and oyster beds, as well as around man-made structures such as pilings, jetties, seawalls, oil rigs and buoys, and among the roots of mangroves.

Biology

The seaweed blenny is a diurnal species and feeds mostly on algae. The diet also includes such invertebrates as

polychaete worms Polychaeta () is a paraphyletic class of generally marine annelid worms, commonly called bristle worms or polychaetes (). Each body segment has a pair of fleshy protrusions called parapodia that bear many bristles, called chaetae, which are m ...

crustacean Crustaceans (Crustacea, ) form a large, diverse arthropod taxon which includes such animals as decapods, seed shrimp, branchiopods, fish lice, krill, remipedes, isopods, barnacles, copepods, amphipods and mantis shrimp. The crustacean group ...

s and hydroids, which it picks off the substrate with its beak-like mouth. A male may have several females in his territory, all of which deposit their eggs in a shared nest. This is in a crevice in a rock, inside a sponge, in a

mollusc Mollusca is the second-largest phylum of invertebrate animals after the Arthropoda, the members of which are known as molluscs or mollusks (). Around 85,000 extant species of molluscs are recognized. The number of fossil species is esti ...

shell or in a can or other piece of discarded human debris. The male guards the nest until the eggs hatch. The

larva A larva (; plural larvae ) is a distinct juvenile form many animals undergo before metamorphosis into adults. Animals with indirect development such as insects, amphibians, or cnidarians typically have a larval phase of their life cycle. The ...

e are

plankton Plankton are the diverse collection of organisms found in Hydrosphere, water (or atmosphere, air) that are unable to propel themselves against a Ocean current, current (or wind). The individual organisms constituting plankton are called plankt ...

ic at first, settling on the seabed when about long.

References

External links

* {{Taxonbar, from=Q2833991

seaweed blenny The seaweed blenny (''Parablennius marmoreus'') is a species of combtooth blenny found in coral reefs in the western Atlantic Ocean along the coasts of New York, Bermuda, the Bahamas, also in the Gulf of Mexico, south to southern Brazil. This s ...

Fish of the Caribbean