94 
FAMILY BLENNIIDAE 
Strasburg (1956:257) first recorded Omo- 
branchus elongatus (Peters) from Hawaii on 
the basis of four specimens collected under 
peculiar circumstances. These fish were obtained 
from a concrete experimental tank located on 
Coconut Island, Kaneohe Bay, Oahu. The tank 
was supplied with running sea water, and at 
various times it housed experimental tunas, sur- 
geonfish, exotic Tridacna clams, and other ani- 
mals. The four Omobranchus were captured in 
the tank following draining; none have been 
taken since, in spite of years of intensive collect- 
ing in the Coconut Island area and elsewhere. It 
will probably never be determined how Omo- 
branchus reached Hawaii, but the fact that one 
of the four original specimens was quite small 
suggested that it had been hatched in Hawaii, 
and that breeding populations therefore exist. 
Mr. Joseph Harada, of the Bureau of Com- 
mercial Fisheries Biological Laboratory, Hono- 
lulu, obtained a fifth Hawaiian specimen of O. 
elongatus on June 16, 196 3- The fish emerged 
from a cavity in a lump of coralline rock when 
the rock was immersed in fresh water to dean 
it. The rock had been removed from a dead reef 
in Pearl Harbor, Oahu, at low tide two days 
earlier. 
This newest Hawaiian 0 . elongatus agrees 
with the four specimens reported earlier. It is 
56.3 mm in standard length, and is a male, 
judging from the ocellus in its soft dorsal. No 
gonad could be found. Counts made on it are 
D XII, 19; A II, 20; P 13-13; and number of 
pectoral rays encompassed by gill openings 6-6. 
It has a relatively short digestive tract for a 
blenny, and this was found to be packed with 
filamentous red, green, and blue-green algae 
along with large amounts of detrital matter and 
diatoms. Although Omobranchus has a promi- 
nent fang at the corner of each jaw, apparently 
it is a grazing herbivore. Perhaps the fangs aid 
in freeing algae from their attachments. 
The capture of this specimen from an open 
reef in Pearl Harbor, on the opposite side of 
Oahu and 18 miles distant from Coconut Island, 
confirms the presence of native 0 . elongatus 
in Hawaii. Obviously its habitat has not been 
sampled very well. The specimen has been de- 
posited in the U. S. National Museum (No. 
198223 ). 
PACIFIC SCIENCE, Vol. XX, January 1966 
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