MASTERS OF THE WATER-BONY FISHES 287 



Like the gobies, blennies can live a very long time out of water, providing 

 they are kept moist. Some of them even have the habit of sun-bathing out of 

 water on rocks or mud flats. When approached, they will leap back into the water 

 with a flick of their tails. In or out of water they have excellent eyesight and hunt 

 their invertebrate food bv sight. Their large eyes and active movements make 

 them appear to be rather intelligent. It should not be hard to test their intelli- 

 gence in their natural habitat, for blennies are quite fearless. 



Their colors are quite often extremely attractive, being satiny and smooth 

 and among the prettiest found in fishes. These colors are quite variable, matching 

 the environment or correlated with the excitement of courtship. The breeding 

 behavior is much like that of gobies. The male selects and cleans a hole or cavity 

 in rocks or weeds for a nesting site. He then entices a female to his lair by 

 raising and lowering himself on his ventral fins or by brushing at her and even 

 bumping her with his nose. De Latil (1955) says that occasionally the female 

 becomes aroused first and reverses the procedure by enticing the male. After 

 egg-laying, the male guards the nest, being extremely intolerant of intruders, 

 especially other males of the same species. He fans the eggs until they hatch and 

 does not eat during the incubation period. It is amusing to watch a male blenny's 

 reaction to a mirror. He can be driven to an extremelv excited, furious state, 

 especially if the mirror is presented between him and his nest. Like gobies, 

 blennies may be caught by placing empty tin cans in areas where they are found. 



This is one of the largest and most confusing of fish families. There are five 

 hundred species ranging in size from an inch or two up to almost 2 feet and 

 distributed over the entire world, especially in the tropics or the arctic. These 

 species seem to be almost as confused among scientists as among laymen. 

 The various adaptive types of blennies are reviewed here, but no attempt is made 

 to be comprehensive as to species or even genera. 



KELP blenny: Heterostichiis rostratus 



Size: The largest blenny. Up to 2 feet. 



Distribution: San Francisco to Baja California. 



Identification: The head is long and low in contrast to most blennies. The color 

 varies with environment; it is brown in seaweed and barred with green in 

 eelgrass. 



Habits: This is a fish of the rocky, kelp- or seaweed-covered shores. Just as the 

 largest sea horse is found among the largest seaweeds, the kelps, it is probably 

 no coincidence that the largest blenny is also found in that giant forest. Strings 

 of eggs are bound around seaweeds and guarded by the male. The habits are not 

 significantly diff^erent from those of smaller, tropical blennies. 



MOLLY miller: Blennius cristatus 



Size: Up to 4 inches. 



Distribution: Florida to Brazil. 



Identification: The comb on the top of the head identifies this small species. 

 The colors are variable; they are often in a series of bands. The shape is similar 

 to the blenny shown on Color Plate 3. 



Habits: This is one of the tvpical, small, shallow-water or tidepool species that 

 are mostly of tropical seas, though some do get into warm temperate waters. 

 These species are very hard to separate from each other. Some of these are semi- 



