A small banded blenny that props itself on rubble and moves in short darts, common and mostly overlooked.
Between about 6 and 7.5 cm depending on the source. A slender head with a pointed snout and tentacles over the nostrils and eyes. Four or five brown to reddish-brown triangular saddles run along the upper body, pointing downward, sometimes dark-outlined, with a bar at the end of the tail base and red spots along the lower side between the tips of the saddles. Males have clear fins and females densely spotted ones.
Several relatives share the reef. The inverted-triangle shape of the saddles, with red spots between their tips, is the check: the diamond blenny has diamond-shaped marks and lives with anemones, and the rosy blenny is rosy with a diffuse mottled pattern.
It lives on coral reef and rocky shore, in crevices, weed and rubble and among sea anemones, in sheltered clear water. It has been recorded to about 40 m but is usually shallower than 3, which is worth knowing. It perches on the bottom propped on its pelvic fins and eats bottom-living worms, snails, bivalves and crustaceans.
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.