''Salarias fasciatus'', commonly known as the jewelled blenny or lawnmower blenny is a

benthic The benthic zone is the ecological region at the lowest level of a body of water such as an ocean, lake, or stream, including the sediment surface and some sub-surface layers. The name comes from ancient Greek, βένθος (bénthos), meaning "t ...

neritic The neritic zone (or sublittoral zone) is the relatively shallow part of the ocean above the drop-off of the continental shelf, approximately in depth. From the point of view of marine biology it forms a relatively stable and well-illuminated ...

, marine fish species endemic to

Australasia Australasia is a region that comprises Australia, New Zealand and some neighbouring islands in the Pacific Ocean. The term is used in a number of different contexts, including geopolitically, physiogeographically, philologically, and ecologica ...

. Despite being known as the lawnmower blenny, due to its propensity to consume algae growth in aquaria, it is principally a

detritivore Detritivores (also known as detrivores, detritophages, detritus feeders, or detritus eaters) are heterotrophs that obtain nutrients by consuming detritus (decomposing plant and animal parts as well as feces). There are many kinds of invertebrates, ...

, with plant material making up only about 15% of its diet. The lawnmower blenny camoflauges with its surroundings, even changing color to hide itself from predators.

Description

Salarias fasciatus is typically olive to brown with dark bars and a large number of round or elongated white spots of different sizes. The blenny has many pale spots, dark streaks that run anteriorly, and several dark bands. It is a small fish, which reaches a maximum length of TL. It possesses no notch in its dorsal fin. The dorsal and anal fins are attached to the base of the caudal fin by a skin membrane. Adult males have elongated anterior rays on the anal fin. There are usually dark longitudinal lines on the front part of the body, and small bright blue spots with dark outlines along the rear part of the body.

Distribution and habitat

The ''Salarias fasciatus'' lives in reefs at depths of from East Africa and the Red Sea to Samoa and the Islands of Micronesia. It is most often found on shallow reef flats that have heavy algae cover.

Taxonomy

Georges Cuvier Jean Léopold Nicolas Frédéric, Baron Cuvier (; 23 August 1769 – 13 May 1832), known as Georges Cuvier, was a French natural history, naturalist and zoology, zoologist, sometimes referred to as the "founding father of paleontology". Cuvier ...

described this species as ''Salarias quadripennis'' in 1816 and named it as the

type species In zoological nomenclature, a type species (''species typica'') is the species name with which the name of a genus or subgenus is considered to be permanently taxonomically associated, i.e., the species that contains the biological type specimen ...

of the

genus Genus ( plural genera ) is a taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of extant taxon, living and fossil organisms as well as Virus classification#ICTV classification, viruses. In the hierarchy of biological classification, genus com ...

Salarias ''Salarias'' is a genus of combtooth blennies found in the Indian Ocean, Indian and Pacific Ocean, Pacific oceans. Species There are currently 13 recognized species in this genus: * ''Salarias alboguttatus'' Rudolf Kner, Kner, 1867 (White-spott ...

'' but Cuvier's name was shown to be a

junior synonym The Botanical and Zoological Codes of nomenclature treat the concept of synonymy differently. * In botanical nomenclature, a synonym is a scientific name that applies to a taxon that (now) goes by a different scientific name. For example, Linna ...

of Bloch's ''Blennius fasciatus''.

Gallery

File:Lawnmower Blenny Smile.jpg File:Algae blenny.jpg File:Salarias fasciatus - 2016 8 29.webm File:Salarias fasciatus 2.jpg File:FMIB 36148 Salarias fasciatus Bloch.jpeg

References

Algae-Eating Blennies of the Genera Salarias and AtrosalariasSalarias fasciatus

External links

* {{Taxonbar, from=Q2331237 fasciatus Fish of the Indian Ocean Fish of the Pacific Ocean Taxa named by Marcus Elieser Bloch Fish described in 1786