Bubbles from the Naturalist Jerry's tank - by Jerry Ligon

Yellowface Pikeblenny

June 2006: Attention Surplus Disorder

There are those among us who are fascinated  and get down-right excited with the prospects of a new unknown species of animal, and take the challenge to study it, perhaps photograph it, search all the relevant field guides, consort with others who are knowledgeable, and hopefully learn its name. Others, who do not understand this habit, call us "eccentric" or "odd". It can occur among bird watchers, and among fish watchers, and in every field of natural history. They pay attention to detail when confronting a rare species, so much so that I like to term this behavior "attention surplus disorder". It is not a pejorative term, meant to demean, but is a compliment of the highest order. A person with such a trait is Marge Lawson, who owns and lives parttime here at Sand Dollar Condos with her husband Jim. Not too long ago she found and photographed a new species for Bari Reef, a Coral Scorpionfish, on a rubble pile near our dive ladder on the south side of our pier. Others of us saw it at the time, but it has not been seen since her initial discovery. Her diving style is slow, meticulous and thorough.  This just might be a good lesson for the rest of us.  She also discovered a sponge colony that is now known as "Marge's Sponge" where lived a whole series of members of another fascinating family of rarely observed fish--the Seahorse, Pipehorse and Pipefish Family.  There she discovered and showed them to the rest of us, a Harlequin Pipefish, a very rare Pipehorse, and multiple unidentified pipehorses. (The Harlequin Pipefish is still present as of the date of this article, late July, 2006)

During the last of July, 2006, Marge came to me in a mild state of excitement, which now immediately gets my attention, stating that she had found some type of pikeblenny in the shallows near the artificial reef balls. She got some photographs on her next dive and showed them to me. One was especially interesting because it showed a male with its dorsal fin expanded, more easily showing characteristics that hopefully would make identification more possible. I determined it as a Yellowface Pikeblenny, a member of the blenny family in the fish book REEF FISH IDENTIFICATION by Humann and Deloach. I also had to consult the CD by ReefNet to see a more complete set of photos and video which just about made identification definite.

On REEF's website which lists the frequency of sighting for all fish surveyed, the Yellowface Pikeblenny on Bari Reef is listed as .1%, meaning that in surveying fish on dives, odds are that of around 1000 dives, one would expect to see this species once.

http://www.reef.org/cgi-bin/georep.pl?region=TWA&geogr=85030014 . It is number 320 of 343 species that have been identified on Bari (which happens to be the number one divesite for species diversity in the entire Atlantic).

You must be literally crawling along the bottom only touching with fingertips, meaning perfect buoyancy in order not to destroy the sand and algae bottom, and looking intently about 3 feet in front of you and, if you are lucky, you will see a tiny, 3 inch long, elongated fish sticking up out of the sand and algae. They have a very snake-like body with a very long and pointed snout. Males have a black spot on the front part of their dorsal fins with a prominent white spot on top of the black spot and then an orange or yellowish spot on top of these two spots.

If you get too close to them, they will quickly disappear in their holes in the sand. Here is where one can learn the "flight distance" of a species. That is, learn the distance in which the species will let you approach without ducking out of site. This distance should now not be breeched in your approach. How often do I see divers not paying attention to this "flight distance" and literally stumble too close to a species that they are studying and, time after time, cause it to duck out of sight. They are not learning! You get one chance–learn this distance on the first encounter. Then, on the next encounter, this distance is set in your mind as this particular species' standard flight distance. This is a characteristic that is part of the species, and any good naturalist will save this bit of information that becomes as important as are the species' field marks, habitat, depth, sun or shade preference,etc. This is something I tell my students becomes part of the "package" that a species is wrapped up in–everything that we can ascertain about the species in the brief time that we have to study it.

The field guides lists this species as being found deeper, from 15 to 60 feet, than another pikeblenny, the Bluethroat Pikeblenny, which indicates that fish seldom read the field guides. While the Yellowface species is found on Bari at around 10 feet, where I found them after getting the specific directions from Marge, they are also found in colonies, in this case of around 6 or more. This characteristic also separates the two similar species in that the Bluethroat is usually found living solitary.

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