''Chasmodes saburrae'', the Florida blenny, is a species of combtooth blenny found in the western central

Atlantic Ocean The Atlantic Ocean is the second-largest of the world's five oceans, with an area of about . It covers approximately 20% of Earth's surface and about 29% of its water surface area. It is known to separate the " Old World" of Africa, Europe ...

, around the coast of the United States.

Description

The Florida blenny is a small fish growing to a maximum length of but a more typical length is . The single, continuous dorsal fin has about six spines and nineteen soft rays. The anal fin has eighteen or nineteen rays. The colour of this fish is a mottled or speckled brown. The sexes differ in that the female has the first anal spine reduced in size. In the breeding season, territorial males have enlarged anal spines with associated fleshy lobes and longitudinal folds of skin. These males also grow larger than the females, have pale longitudinal markings, an iridescent blue spot at the front of the dorsal fin, an orange streak running backwards from the blue spot and orange colouring on the gills and throat.

Distribution and habitat

This blenny is native to waters less than deep in the southeastern United States and the northeastern

Gulf of Mexico The Gulf of Mexico ( es, Golfo de México) is an oceanic basin, ocean basin and a marginal sea of the Atlantic Ocean, largely surrounded by the North American continent. It is bounded on the northeast, north and northwest by the Gulf Coast of ...

. Its range extends from

New Smyrna Beach, Florida New Smyrna Beach is a city in Volusia County, Florida, United States, located on the central east coast of the state, with the Atlantic Ocean to the east. Its population is 30,142 in 2020 by the United States Census Bureau. The downtown section of ...

around the coast to the Chandeleur Islands of

Louisiana Louisiana , group=pronunciation (French: ''La Louisiane'') is a state in the Deep South and South Central regions of the United States. It is the 20th-smallest by area and the 25th most populous of the 50 U.S. states. Louisiana is borde ...

; the range includes the

Indian River Lagoon The Indian River Lagoon is a grouping of three lagoons: the Mosquito Lagoon, the Banana River, and the Indian River, on the Atlantic Coast of Florida; one of the most biodiverse estuaries in the Northern Hemisphere and is home to more than 4,300 ...

, the

Florida Keys The Florida Keys are a coral cay archipelago located off the southern coast of Florida, forming the southernmost part of the continental United States. They begin at the southeastern coast of the Florida peninsula, about south of Miami, and e ...

and the

Mississippi Mississippi () is a state in the Southeastern region of the United States, bordered to the north by Tennessee; to the east by Alabama; to the south by the Gulf of Mexico; to the southwest by Louisiana; and to the northwest by Arkansas. Miss ...

Delta. It is a demersal fish and often found around mangroves and over rocky reefs.

Ecology

The Florida blenny is an

omnivore An omnivore () is an animal that has the ability to eat and survive on both plant and animal matter. Obtaining energy and nutrients from plant and animal matter, omnivores digest carbohydrates, protein, fat, and fiber, and metabolize the nutr ...

but the diet varies with size. Although all sizes of fish feed on

copepod Copepods (; meaning "oar-feet") are a group of small crustaceans found in nearly every freshwater and saltwater habitat (ecology), habitat. Some species are planktonic (inhabiting sea waters), some are benthos, benthic (living on the ocean floor) ...

s, the smaller fish mostly feed on prey found in mid water. Larger fish often feed on or near the seabed, with

detritus In biology, detritus () is dead particulate organic material, as distinguished from dissolved organic material. Detritus typically includes the bodies or fragments of bodies of dead organisms, and fecal material. Detritus typically hosts commun ...

and plant material being added to their diet, as well as polychaete worms,

mollusc Mollusca is the second-largest phylum of invertebrate animals after the Arthropoda, the members of which are known as molluscs or mollusks (). Around 85,000 extant species of molluscs are recognized. The number of fossil species is esti ...

shrimp Shrimp are crustaceans (a form of shellfish) with elongated bodies and a primarily swimming mode of locomotion – most commonly Caridea and Dendrobranchiata of the decapod order, although some crustaceans outside of this order are refer ...

s, other

crustacean Crustaceans (Crustacea, ) form a large, diverse arthropod taxon which includes such animals as decapods, seed shrimp, branchiopods, fish lice, krill, remipedes, isopods, barnacles, copepods, amphipods and mantis shrimp. The crustacean group ...

s and

fish eggs Roe ( ) or hard roe is the fully ripe internal egg masses in the ovaries, or the released external egg masses, of fish and certain marine animals such as shrimp, scallop, sea urchins and squid. As a seafood, roe is used both as a cooking, coo ...

. The Florida blenny is probably eaten by other fish and by large

invertebrate Invertebrates are a paraphyletic group of animals that neither possess nor develop a vertebral column (commonly known as a ''backbone'' or ''spine''), derived from the notochord. This is a grouping including all animals apart from the chordate ...

s. This blenny is not a

shoaling fish In biology, any group of fish that stay together for social reasons are shoaling, and if the group is swimming in the same direction in a coordinated manner, they are schooling. In common usage, the terms are sometimes used rather loosely. Ab ...

and the male is

territorial A territory is an area of land, sea, or space, particularly belonging or connected to a country, person, or animal. In international politics, a territory is usually either the total area from which a state may extract power resources or a ...

during the breeding season, which lasts from about March to October. A male will mate with several females and all these will deposit their eggs in the same location. Places chosen for this include the empty shells of the eastern oyster (''Crassostrea virginica'') and rigid pen shell (''Atrina rigida''), rock crevices,

sponge Sponges, the members of the phylum Porifera (; meaning 'pore bearer'), are a basal animal clade as a sister of the diploblasts. They are multicellular organisms that have bodies full of pores and channels allowing water to circulate through t ...

s or discarded cans; in one case, 11,000 eggs were found in a single can. The male guards the eggs for the three weeks or so before they hatch, while the females produce further batches of eggs at intervals during the breeding season. The larvae are pelagic and feed on

zooplankton Zooplankton are the animal component of the planktonic community ("zoo" comes from the Greek word for ''animal''). Plankton are aquatic organisms that are unable to swim effectively against currents, and consequently drift or are carried along by ...

, before settling to the seabed after about three weeks when they are long.

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q2780369 Florida blenny Fauna of the Southeastern United States Florida blenny