A blenny known only from the Revillagigedo Archipelago, in shallow rock and rubble.
To about 4 cm. An olive to flesh-coloured head with an orange bar, dotted blue and bordered blue and white, angling down and back from the eye, and five dark red-brown to blackish bars over the upper half of the body and the tail base. No other Hypsoblennius is confirmed from these islands. Against the barnacle blenny of the mainland coast, the orange bar behind the eye is the character: that fish has a plain tan band there and rows of tan patches rather than dark bars.
Rocky shore in the top five metres, from the intertidal down. It holds a hole or crevice; eggs are laid on the walls of the shelter and the male stays with them. Recorded from the Revillagigedo Islands, and Wikipedia narrows that to Socorro alone, which the two databases do not. The species name refers to Proteus and to the fish’s colour change between juvenile and adult and its several colour forms. Listed as Vulnerable, with warming shallow water in El Niño years given as the reason.
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.