''Chorisochismus dentex'', the rocksucker or giant clingfish, is a

species In biology, a species is the basic unit of Taxonomy (biology), classification and a taxonomic rank of an organism, as well as a unit of biodiversity. A species is often defined as the largest group of organisms in which any two individuals of ...

clingfish Clingfishes are fishes of the family Gobiesocidae, the only family in the order Gobiesociformes. These fairly small to very small fishes are widespread in tropical and temperate regions, mostly near the coast, but a few species in deeper seas or ...

found along the coast of

southern Africa Southern Africa is the southernmost subregion of the African continent, south of the Congo and Tanzania. The physical location is the large part of Africa to the south of the extensive Congo River basin. Southern Africa is home to a number ...

from

Namibia Namibia (, ), officially the Republic of Namibia, is a country in Southern Africa. Its western border is the Atlantic Ocean. It shares land borders with Zambia and Angola to the north, Botswana to the east and South Africa to the south and e ...

to northern

Natal NATAL or Natal may refer to: Places * Natal, Rio Grande do Norte, a city in Brazil * Natal, South Africa (disambiguation), a region in South Africa ** Natalia Republic, a former country (1839–1843) ** Colony of Natal, a former British colony ...

South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the southernmost country in Africa. It is bounded to the south by of coastline that stretch along the South Atlantic and Indian Oceans; to the north by the neighbouring count ...

.Lubke, R., & I. De Mour (1998). ''Field Guide to the Eastern and Southern Cape Coasts'', p. 144. It inhabits the

intertidal The intertidal zone, also known as the foreshore, is the area above water level at low tide and underwater at high tide (in other words, the area within the tidal range). This area can include several types of habitats with various species ...

and

subtidal The neritic zone (or sublittoral zone) is the relatively shallow part of the ocean above the drop-off of the continental shelf, approximately in depth. From the point of view of marine biology it forms a relatively stable and well-illuminated ...

zones in shallow reefs and rock pools. This species is the only known member of its

genus Genus ( plural genera ) is a taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of living and fossil organisms as well as viruses. In the hierarchy of biological classification, genus comes above species and below family. In binomial n ...

. ''C. dentex'' grows to a

total length Fish measurement is the measuring of individual fish and various parts of their anatomies. These data are used in many areas of ichthyology, including taxonomy and fisheries biology. Overall length * Standard length (SL) is the length of a fish ...

of and is the largest species in the clingfish family (together with the similar-sized South American ''

Sicyases sanguineus ''Sicyases sanguineus'' is a species of amphibious marine clingfish in the family Gobiesocidae. It lives in the Southeast Pacific along the entire coast of Chile and southern Peru. Locally, it is known as ' (literally, frog-fish). It inhabits sh ...

''). It varies in colour, but is typically mottled greenish or reddish. Dead and dried ''C. dentex'' are occasionally found by

beachcombers ''The Beachcombers'' is a Canadian comedy-drama television series that ran on CBC Television from October 1, 1972, to December 12, 1990. With over 350 episodes, it is one of the longest-running dramatic series ever made for English-language Canad ...

, and their often red colour combined with their strange shape and proportionally large teeth have caused some to describe them as "sea monsters". Feeding varies with age. Juveniles mostly feed on small crustaceans. When between long, they gradually change to an adult diet. Adults are specialized feeders of patellid limpets (almost 75% of their diet), but also take significant quantities of other sea snails and

sea urchin Sea urchins () are spiny, globular echinoderms in the class Echinoidea. About 950 species of sea urchin live on the seabed of every ocean and inhabit every depth zone from the intertidal seashore down to . The spherical, hard shells (tests) ...

s, and low levels of

chiton Chitons () are marine molluscs of varying size in the class Polyplacophora (), formerly known as Amphineura. About 940 extant and 430 fossil species are recognized. They are also sometimes known as gumboots or sea cradles or coat-of-mail sh ...

s. Limpets are typically strongly attached to the rock surface and are difficult to dislodge. First the fish perches next to its prey. It then rapidly lunges forward and up, dives down with its mouth open, inserts its relatively large, fang-like upper front teeth below the edge of the limpet and flips it. It is immediately swallowed whole and the entire sequence typically only lasts about one second. The prey can be quite large compared to the size of the fish. A ''C. dentex'' contained a limpet.

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q13466056, from2=Q3643202 Gobiesocidae Taxa named by Charles N. F. Brisout Monotypic ray-finned fish genera