I managed to capture a decent shot of one of these fish the other week. They're tough to get a good shot of because they are free swimming and dart around. When frightened they'll dive down and back into a hole, sometimes you can get a shot of their head while looking out of a worm hole or sponge.
The Ewa Fang Blenny (Plagiotremus ewaensis) is one of the blennies that seems to mimic the cleaner wrasses. The have similar coloration as the juvenile Hawaiian Cleaner Wrasse (Labroides phthirophagus) and swim in the same fish enticing motion as the cleaner wrasses, however when a larger fish presents itself for a cleaning, they take a bite of scale, gill, skin or mucus. The fish don't seem to like that. I did see a Parrotfish chase one about 30 feet one time after the blenny took a nip of it's gill.
We've had some cold clear nights here lately. It managed to get down into the upper 50's a couple of times at our place. The surf is finally down... big surf for a whole week this time, that's not common. I feel sorry for anyone coming over specifically to dive this last week. Most everyone cancelled all week, and I personally wouldn't have wanted to dive Monday through Friday of this week. I had a buddy who dove Sunday of last week, before it got bad, who said they had fairly heavy surge at 80' that day. They're expecting surf again later this week, but not as big as the last go around.
Later,
Steve
Ewa Fang Blenny !!!!
