Paul Naylor celebrates a bald, bold and brotherly blenny, a fine fish for snorkellers to seek out
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Large shanny displaying its strong teeth
Shanny
Lipophrys pholis
Paul Naylor celebrates a bald, bold and brotherly blenny, a fine fish for snorkellers to seek out
If you haven’ t yet relished the joys of snorkelling and are one of the divers for whom‘ proper’ dives don’ t start until below 6 metres or so, you might not be familiar with the little character featured here. That would be a shame because this, the only UK blenny without head tentacles( hence‘ bald’), is an easily recognised and fascinating fish.
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Two shannies inspect an outstretched finger
The shanny, sometimes called the common blenny, can be abundant in the intertidal zone of rocky coasts so is a frequent sight for shore explorers. They see it darting across a rockpool or hiding in a hole or crevice out of the water, where it is perfectly happy for several hours when the tide is out, so long as the sheltering place is shady and damp. Shannies can absorb oxygen from the air through their skin and throats, so are well adapted to this exposure. But it’ s when you go underwater with them, even if that water’ s barely deep enough to swim in, that you get to appreciate their personality.
Being versatile feeders, you can watch shannies browsing on seaweed, or grabbing small prawns, tiny crabs and other animals. Look out for the youngsters, too, who specialise in nipping off the feeding limbs of barnacles when they emerge from their shells’ top‘ hatch’ to sweep through the water for plankton. Ouch!
Groups of shannies on the rocks are a regular sight, and while there is often some bullying or’ keeping order’ by larger individuals towards smaller colleagues, they can also be remarkably tolerant of close neighbours on other occasions. As a long-time observer and documenter of their tompot blenny relatives, which are much more consistently feisty and territorial, I find the comparatively laidback attitude of shannies intriguing. In crevices on the shore, there are sometimes‘ shanny hotels’ where several individuals are crammed in close together. This, however, is usually seen when the tide is out, so could possibly just be a way of them conserving moisture.