Barcheek Blenny, Coralliozetus boehlkei

Barcheek Blenny, Coralliozetus boehlkei, Juveniles. Underwater photographs taken in Zihuantanejo Bay, Guerrero, November 2019. Photographs courtesy of Ron Woheau, Zihuantanejo.

Barcheek Blenny, Coralliozetus boehlkei, Males. Underwater photographs taken in Zihuantanejo Bay, Guerrero, January and November 2019. Photographs courtesy of Ron Woheau, Zihuantanejo.

The Barcheek Blenny, Coralliozetus boehlkei, is a member of the Tube Blenny or Chaenopsidae Family, this is known in Mexico as tubícola cachet rayado. Globally, there are six species in the genus Coralliozetus, of which four are found in Mexican waters, all in the Pacific Ocean.

The Barcheek Blenny has an elongated body. They are dimorphic with males being dark brown in color with the head having several oblique alternating black and white bars on the cheeks and gill cover and the body having white spots; the females are lightly colored with thin dark bars with the head having three narrow white bars on the cheeks and dark bars ventrally and a transparent dorsal fin. Their head is short and blunt with simple cirri at the nostrils and one pair of short unbranched cirri over the eyes. Their mouth has a notch in the middle of the top lip and one row of teeth on each side of the roof of the mouth. Their anal fin has 2 spines and 19 to 21 rays, their first dorsal has 19 spines and is low at the front; their second dorsal fin has 10 to 12 rays; and, their pectoral fins have 13 to 14 rays.

The Barcheek Blenny inhabit abandoned barnacles, mollusks tubes, and worm tubes on rocky reefs and around boulders in shallow waters at depths up to 7 m (20 feet). They reach a maximum of 3.1 cm (1.2 inches) in length. They enter tail first in the various types of shelter in which they reside and are found with only their head exposed. They are known to have very poor eyesight and to exhibit fearless and extremely aggressive behavior in captivity and will attack anything large or small that approaches their home. They feed primarily on zooplankton. The Barcheek Blenny is poorly studied with very limited information available about their lifestyle and behavioral patterns including specific details on age, growth, longevity, movement patterns, diet, habitat use, and reproduction.

The Barcheek Blenny is a resident of Mexican waters of the Pacific Ocean but has a limited distribution being found only from Mazatlán, Sinaloa, to Guatemala along the coast of the mainland.

The Barcheek Blenny is most likely confused with the Zerbraface Blenny, Coralliozetus micropes (lack the white oblique bars on the cheeks, a Sea of Cortez only species).

From a conservation perspective the Barcheek Blenny is currently considered to be of Least Concern with stable, widely distributed populations. They are small in stature and of limited interest to most.