''Petroscirtes fallax'', the deceiver fangbelly or yellow saberetooth blenny, is a species of

combtooth blenny Combtooth blennies are blenniiformids; percomorph marine fish of the family Blenniidae, part of the order Blenniiformes. They are the largest family of blennies with around 401 known species in 58 genera. Combtooth blennies are found in tropica ...

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. C ...

s in the western

Pacific The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean (or, depending on definition, to Antarctica) in the south, and is bounded by the contine ...

ocean. This species reaches a length of TL. This is a small species of blenny with a body which is yellow to whitish in colour and is marked with three longitudinal black stripes. The more ventral stripe extending onto the base of the

pectoral fin Fins are distinctive anatomical features composed of bony spines or rays protruding from the body of a fish. They are covered with skin and joined together either in a webbed fashion, as seen in most bony fish, or similar to a flipper, as ...

although not to the base of the anal fin. This species is thought to be a possible

Batesian mimic Batesian mimicry is a form of mimicry where a harmless species has evolved to imitate the warning signals of a harmful species directed at a predator of them both. It is named after the English naturalist Henry Walter Bates, after his work on bu ...

of the Lined Fangblenny, '' Meiacanthus lineatus'', which has a pair of venomous canine-like teeth in its lower jaw.

References

fallax Fish described in 1976 {{Blenniidae-stub