A dark blenny with a blunt head and red lips, perched on shallow rock and defending a grazing patch.
To about 12.5 cm. Elongate and compressed, dark brown, with a red lower lip, red on the lower part of the pectoral fin, and red margins to the dorsal and anal fins. The red lips are the field mark. There is a single branched tentacle at the nostril, a single slender one over the eye, and a pair of short ones on each side of the nape, plus a large curved canine at the back of each side of the lower jaw. The lateral line runs in two separate overlapping sections.
The molly miller and the seaweed blenny share the same shallow rock. The red lips and red fin margins on a plain dark brown body, with a blunt horse-like profile, separate this one.
It lives in shallow clear water over coral or rock, often in surge, from the surface to about 70 m. It is strongly territorial: it perches on a rock, darts out at intruders and retreats into a hole. It grazes algae and lays sticky eggs on the bottom.
The name is worth a note. The old catch-all Ophioblennius atlanticus has been broken into five species. That name now applies only to eastern Atlantic and West African fish. Florida, Bahamas and Caribbean fish are Ophioblennius macclurei, which is the name used here. Many older guides and aquarium sites still use the old one. The Bermuda population may turn out to be a separate species again.
Ratings are per location: 1 means found on most dives that look for it, 5 means a handful of records. Where enough dives have been logged the figure is calculated from them; otherwise it is an editorial estimate, and says so. We publish habitat and destination, not the dive site.