IT APPEARS THAT DIVERS ARE NOT THE ONLY ONES who watch the fishes under the sea.
The roughhead blenny at front center is clearly interested in the doings of the sharknose gobies (Elacatinus evelynae) sharing its coralhead on Bonaire.
A ROOM WITH A VIEW Basically, that’s what these little blennies do: Sit in their windows in the coral watching the world outside. And grabbing plankton out of the passing current.
The gobies, of course, are waiting for a client to appear, such as a grouper or hind, to have them clean parasites and dead scales off its skin.
TRUTH IN ID’ING It’s hard to be sure the gobies are sharknoses. They could be cleaning gobies, which differ by the shape of their snouts — difficult to discern in this photo. However, Reef Fish Identification notes that sharknoses’ range extends to the northern coast of South America and that cleaning gobies are uncommon in that region of the Caribbean.
REFERENCE: Reef Fish Identification Florida, Caribbean, Bahamas, Paul Humann, Ned DeLoach