SCUBAHUB
Tompot male ( left ) with female visitor ; you can see patches of eggs with different colours and he has obviously been busy !
Outside the breeding season , both sexes are very well camouflaged but , when that time comes , the male transforms to flamboyant yellow , with a deep black head . The dazzling colours even seem to intensify when he is in the act of courting an egg-laying female visitor , including a trembling dance . Sometimes , you have to look hard to see the dowdily-coloured female at all !
Blennies are far from the only common fish with intriguing reproductive habits . Corkwing wrasse males build impressive nests with which to woo females , but are vulnerable to ‘ sneaker ’ males pretending to be females ! Cuckoo and ballan wrasse are all born as females and some change into males later in life depending on local demand . The switch is accompanied by an obvious colour change in the cuckoo , not so the ballan .
One of my favourite wrasse encounters was not with these larger species , but with a pair of goldsinnies that I concluded from their behaviour and appearance were a courting couple . Both fish also had noticeably faint black spots on their tail stems . These spots are usually very bold and are said to be ‘ guild marks ’ that advertise the goldsinny ’ s parasite removal service to their larger fish ‘ customers ’. It was speculation , but I wondered if the faint spots were their equivalent of switching your work mobile off when out on a hot date ! �
Black-faced blenny couple ; the male is dazzling but you could miss the cryptic female !
Goldsinny couple with unusually feint tail stem markings , is it because they have other priorities ?
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