FishSpotterby
Back to the feed

Fish

Shanny

Lipophrys pholis

Lipophrys pholis (Linnaeus, 1758) · Blenniidae WoRMS 126768

Reference photos

Tap a photo to enlarge.

A smooth, scaleless blenny of rocky shores, up to about 16 to 17 cm, with no tentacles on the head and a single long dorsal fin split by a notch into unequal sections. Its colour varies with the surroundings, from dark brown or blotched to blackish, with a dark spot behind the first dorsal fin. It shelters in rockpools and under damp stones and seaweed, emerges at high tide to forage, and can breathe air while out of water.

Depth

0-8 m, most commonly in rockpools on the shore

Size

Up to 16-17 cm total length, and up to 10 years old

Habitat

Rocky shores, in rockpools and under damp stones and seaweed; also around man-made structures such as pier pilings

Behaviour

Resident with homing behaviour; forages at high tide and can stay out of water under rocks and weed, breathing air

Diet

I eat

  • Small benthic invertebrates, especially gastropods, barnacles and amphipods
  • Limpets and other molluscs, along with crabs, polychaete worms and isopods
  • Algae, eaten alongside its invertebrate prey

Eats me

  • Recorded as prey of the serranid fish Serranus atricauda in the Azores

Where you'd find it

Mostly seen in the English Channel, the North Sea and the Irish Sea, and only here and there elsewhere.

ChannelCeltic SeaNorth SeaIrish SeaW of IrelandW of Scotland
Often seenNow and thenWhere PEBL filmsBased on marine survey records (OBIS). Blank seas can mean nobody has looked there, not that the animal is absent.

Sources

Open-access references behind this page. Every statement on this page was read out of one of them; anything that could not be traced to a source was taken off the page rather than left standing. Each link was checked on the date shown, and confirmed then to be about this species.

Name Shanny in a clip to add it to your collection.

Spot it in the feed