Chalk Reef Jester – the Tompot Blenny
By Kerry Williams: Communications Officer – Conservation, Sussex Wildlife Trust
When it comes to engaging people with our natural world, the marine environment can be one of the more challenging stories to sell. Our oceans provide thriving biodiverse ecosystems and play host to the fascinating lives of some of the most weird and wonderful creatures and organisms on earth. But, for most of us, we can’t see it.
We, as mammals, like things with a face. We like a good story, characters with big personalities. We like cute. Enter the Tompot Blenny.
A regular acquaintance of divers, Tompot Blennies have made a name for themselves as a bit of a comedian; a jester of the reef. With antler-like orange tentacles, big eyes and a curious, feisty attitude, this fish doesn’t blend into the background.
Their sassy attitude comes from their territorial nature. As crevice dwelling fish, Tompot Blennies can be found on guard in holes in rocky reefs. Here, the males will spruce up the place, hoiking out mud and silt, and await passing females. If the hidey-hole meets her standards, she will lay her eggs, which the male then fertilises and guards for a month or more, before the young hatch and float off to live their best fishy lives. Job done.
But the drama ensues with interloping males who try to fertilise the eggs behind the homeowner’s back. The females also keep their options open by laying eggs with several different hosts. With farce a-fin, it’s understandable that the males might like to keep an eye on who’s passing by, hence their penchant for investigating divers.
You might be lucky enough to see the Tompot’s smaller cousin, the Common Blenny (or ‘Shanny’) in rockpools, and may be luckier still to see a Tompot Blenny at the bottom of the shore at low tide, but mostly they inhabit shallow rocky reefs.
That towering Sussex chalk we’re used to associating with cliff and grassland extends under the seabed, creating chalk reefs, a nationally scarce habitat. Teeming with biodiversity, the chalk provides the vital bedrock that Tompot Blennies and many other species rely on for shelter and food.
With this bustling ecosystem just out of sight, we need charismatic species like the Tompot Blenny to welcome us into their underwater world; a fish to hook us, so we might just consider being a little more curious ourselves.