Goby Blenny Prosopagnosia

I love gobies (I even wrote a book about them). I use social media mainly to look at pictures of strength athletes, pretty women, and fishes. Of the fishes, I am most interested in gobies. On Instagram, I follow the hashtag #goby. So I get to see photos from photographers whom I don’t follow yet who shoot cool shots of gobies. Not infrequently, I see goby-blenny confusion akin to this:

 

 

Goby Blenny Prosopagnosia

Prosopagnosia is a medical condition where the patient can’t distinguish individual faces.

I propose a new condition, “Goby Blenny Prosopagnosia”, where the patient can’t distinguish gobies from blennies. It’s common. Underwater photographers often tag photos of gobies as #blenny, or photos of blennies as #goby. I’m such a polymath that I invent discover diseases now too.

I hope no one makes fun of this serious condition.

As a hint: If a little fish on a coral, rock or in the sand perches in a bent manner and has little antlers on top of its eyes, it’s most likely a blenny. Fishes which don’t behave and look like this belong to a number of other families, including gobies. The blenny in the photo above most likely sits in a curved manner, which is not visible on (the otherwise in fact excellent) photograph.

The Lives of Gobies

Don’t forget to check out my book on gobies, “The Lives of Gobies”: