Name that goby

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Well, that was fun!

Do you have anymore? Let's do another one. :)

I just love this stuff, can you tell?
 
Well, that was fun!

Do you have anymore? Let's do another one. :)

I just love this stuff, can you tell?


Why, now that you mention it, I DO have one more in the "?" file from my last trip...

This guy was also in the Dry Tortugas, but a bit more shallow (30 feet).

goby2.jpg

Markings vaguely similar to a saddled blenny on the back half, and might be a regional variant or intermediate form of something... but what do you think? The front and back differences threw me on this one..

Mike
 
Scratching head with finger. Hmm no eyebrows, goby behaviour, blennie beard, saddled blennie coloring in the back, um um um . . .

Deborah . . . where are yoooouuuu?
 
Sorry. I had a day plus trouble getting the sketches. Here they are and I hope they don't upload too small to be of value.

Glass Goby
Glass Goby.jpg
Masked Goby:
masked goby.jpg

Re #2: Great blenny. Don't know it. First dorsal segment looks pretty tall -- a distinguishing characteristic for the ID.
 
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Well..it is not a barracuda.

I would go with a variation of the Saddled Blenny. Humman & DeLoach have shots of the west palm beach variant that is as close as anything else I have found. The dark bar behind the eye in your photo is very distinctive. It does not match the H & D shot, but is much closer than anything else.

It seems to be a bit of a fronkenstein with the front half not matching the back half. I even flipped through the juvenile parottfish / wrasses and got nada.

So it must be a barracuda.
 
Giffenk, you're weirding me out dude. That's the same process I went through came yo similar conclusion on the West Palm picture but then . . . Yah know . . .

It just doesn't quite work. The saddle markings minor mirror themselves on the underside. That doesn't match the picture or the write-up. The eyes though, the eyes work.

Darn it . . .I'm not sure this is still fun. :D

not a cuda, not a cuda, not a . . .?

---------- Post added May 1st, 2013 at 06:11 AM ----------

OK we might be getting somewhere. Maybe this time you really have found a new goby/blennie. Apparently, it does happen. Check this out:

ocean.si.edu/ocean-news/scientists-discover-seven-new-species-fish

Of course, it doesn't appear that any of the seven are your little guy. But even so, maybe he's number 8! :)
 
That's not the first dorsal, those are the pectoral rays showing through. Def a Malacoctenus blenny. I would bet M. triangulatus.

Check out this one from Key West: thumbs6. It's about halfway down the page and looks similar to yours.
 
Thanks to LouisJ, I took another looksee. Here's a photo by Kris Wilk. Taken in the Dry Tortugas. Of a Saddled Blenny...
Saddled Blenny Dry Tortugas Kris Wilk.jpg
 

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