A tube blenny that lives in a hole in hard coral with only the spiny head showing, and darts back in when a camera approaches.
To about 5 cm. The head carries long spines running from the snout back over the nape, which is the mark of the genus, the rear rim of the eye is serrated, and the eye tentacles are weakly branched. The head is dark brown with a white stripe running from the cheek to the pectoral fin, and the body carries two rows of white blotches over a series of dark bands.
Two relatives share the habitat and the posture and they are genuinely hard: the white cheek-to-pectoral stripe and the long snout-to-nape spines identify this one, and a photograph of the head spines is often needed to be sure.
It lives in holes in limestone ledges and slopes rather than on patch reef, in areas with brain corals, sea fans and urchins, in the top 9 m. It perches with only its head out and darts out to take plankton and small crustaceans.
The Florida record has been removed. The range as given by both the Smithsonian and FishBase runs from the Bahamas to the southern Caribbean and does not reach Florida.
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.