''Ecsenius paroculus'', the spottedback coralblenny, is a species of
combtooth blenny
Combtooth blennies are blenny, blenniiformids; Percomorpha, percomorph marine fish of the family Blenniidae, part of the Order (biology), order Blenniiformes. They are the largest family of blennies with around 401 known species in 58 genera. Com ...
in the genus ''
Ecsenius
''Ecsenius'' is a large genus of fish in the family Blenniidae. Several species, including ''Ecsenius midas'', the Midas blenny, and ''Ecsenius bicolor'', the bicolor blenny, are commonly sold at aquarium stores as pets.
Species
There are curren ...
''. It is found in
coral reef
A coral reef is an underwater ecosystem characterized by reef-building corals. Reefs are formed of colonies of coral polyps held together by calcium carbonate. Most coral reefs are built from stony corals, whose polyps cluster in group ...
s in the western
Pacific
The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean, or, depending on the definition, to Antarctica in the south, and is bounded by the cont ...
ocean. It can reach a maximum length of 4 centimetres. Blennies in this species feed primarily off of plants, including
benthic
The benthic zone is the ecological region at the lowest level of a body of water such as an ocean, lake, or stream, including the sediment surface and some sub-surface layers. The name comes from the Ancient Greek word (), meaning "the depths". ...
algae
Algae ( , ; : alga ) is an informal term for any organisms of a large and diverse group of photosynthesis, photosynthetic organisms that are not plants, and includes species from multiple distinct clades. Such organisms range from unicellular ...
and weeds.
References
* Springer, V. G. 1988 (14 Sept.) ''The Indo-Pacific blenniid fish genus Ecsenius.'' Smithsonian Contributions to Zoology No. 465: i-iv + 1–134, col. Pls. 1-14.
paroculus
Fish described in 1988
Taxa named by Victor G. Springer
{{Blenniidae-stub