Worm-blennies: a world of awkwardness in 30mm

 

Yesterday, we re-sampled the first docks on South Water Caye, and came across a nice, rather awkwardly-shaped surprise. A worm-blenny, Stathmonotus tekla (or so we think... anybody care for counting 42 fin-spines on the dorsal fin???). In case you haven't noticed, these fishes in the family Chaenopsidae (tube blennies) are exceptionally long and weird. In fact, the scientific name of their genus (Stathmonotus) roughly translates to "having a lot of room in the back" (sometimes you just have to commend taxonomists on their apt, but ridiculously clumsy way of expressing what these organisms look like). The particular species, S. tekla, was first described by Nichols in 1910, and has long been considered a subspecies of Stathmonotus stahli (Hastings & Springer 1994). However, more recently, it has been recognized as a separate species that occupies sheltered habitats in the Nothern Caribbean, while S. stahli represents its Southern counterpart. As all chaenopsids, S. tekla sports some magnificent appendages arounds his head, in the fish world known as cirri (if you like cirri, you're in for a treat when we find an Acanthemblemaria blenny). While the two tremendously erect and straight cirri on top of its huge eyes are certainly impressive (and definitely give this guys face a very alien-like look), I'm particularly fond of the two tiny cirri on his preoperculum (visible right under the pelvic fins -- they're hardly worthy of being called fins), which, even in the world of chaenopsids, are rather unusual. Why would you do that? My best guess is that these cirri help S. tekla to sense what's going on in the world around him, while he bides his time in a cozy little hole with just his head sticking out. What a life. Of course, the question arises just why the damn fish needs so much room in the back when he spends his time hiding his bottom in embarrassment anyway... I haven't really seen S. tekla in action, but similar to other tube-blennies, he may dart for small planktonic invertebrates that drift by his little hidy-hole in regular intervals, in which case the long body along with eel-like undulating swimming motions may come in handy... In any case, although I like his big butt (and I cannot lie), I am particularly pleased with his cirri -- they really tie the fish together... stay tuned for more fishy goodness from Project Cryptodiversity and consider donating to the project! 

Cheers,

Simon