Ringneck blenny
Fish · Last reviewed 2026-08-25
The second Macaronesian blenny, and the wide-ranging one — Iberia to Namibia, into the Mediterranean, and across to Brazil and South Africa.
Catching Ringneck blenny
Everything here on fishing for it. Each entry opens the page behind it.
- Ground
- When
- May — months recorded at the places that document it, not a season for the whole range.
- Where
- 1 place FishingHQ documents — strongest claim anywhere: recorded here · From the shore
The rockpool blenny lives in the top metre of water and the ringneck goes down to 25 m, and that is the practical difference between the two blennies a Canary shore angler meets. This one is a fish of rock faces and ledges rather than of pools.
It is a slender blenny reaching a FishBase maximum of 12.7 cm, with the branched supraorbital tentacles the family is known by and a colour scheme that varies enormously — brown, olive, orange or almost black, sometimes with a pale collar behind the head that gives it the English name, and with a distinctly spotted head in many individuals.
What is worth noticing about it is its reach, because it is the opposite of everything else in this file. Almost all the Lanzarote unlocks are Macaronesian endemics or near-endemics. This one runs from Spain and Portugal to Möwe Bay in Namibia, along the Mediterranean coast from Morocco through Algeria to Spain, and — disjunctly — in the south-west Atlantic from Brazil to Patagonia and in the western Indian Ocean from Natal to Knysna. A species record written because three fish were caught on a Lanzarote clifftop path is a record that will be useful on four coasts.
It is caught as blennies are caught: small hooks, tiny baits or one-inch soft plastics, worked into crevices and along the foot of rock in shallow water.
How it is caught
Where Ringneck blenny is documented
Places where public sources describe this species as fished, with how it is fished and how strongly the evidence supports it. This is not a range map and it is not a recommendation — it is what has been written down about a fishery rather than a record of any individual catch, and being listed is never permission to fish.
Lanzarote
1 documented place
The cliff coast between Puerto del Carmen and Puerto Calero
Rock mark
Recorded here
From the shore
Reported May
What these strengths mean
- Recorded here
- At least one credible public account of this species being caught here. That is all it means.
Identification
No photograph of Ringneck blenny has passed identity review yet, so none is shown. FishingHQ publishes a species photograph only once somebody has confirmed the animal in it against the species record’s own diagnostic features.
- Scientific name
- Parablennius pilicornis
- Family
- Blenniidae
- Water
- Saltwater
- Conservation status
- Least Concern
- Regions
- Western Europe, Mediterranean, West Africa, North Africa, Central & South America, East & Southern Africa
- Slender scaleless blenny with a long continuous dorsal fin and branched tentacles over each eye.
- Highly variable in colour — brown, olive, orange, or near-black — which makes colour a poor identifier for it.
- Frequently a pale band or collar just behind the head, which is the origin of the English name.
- The head is often finely spotted, and there is usually a dark blotch at the front of the dorsal fin.
- Found on rock faces and ledges down to about 25 m, rather than confined to the top metre as the rockpool blenny is.
Size
- Typical
- 6–10 cm
- Large
- 11 cm and over
Exceptional: FishBase records a maximum of 12.7 cm
Lifecycle and reproduction
Demersal over a depth range of 0 to 25 m on rocky ground. High resilience, and a very wide latitudinal range: FishBase records it from 44°N to 56°S.
Nest-guarding with adhesive eggs deposited in a crevice, as is general in the genus. This species' own reproductive detail is not separately given on the FishBase record and is not invented here.
Feeding and senses
Takes small crustaceans, worms and algal material from rock, darting from cover. As with the other blennies, a bait placed into its territory is taken as much out of aggression as out of hunger.
Short-range sight and territorial response. It holds to a particular piece of rock, so success is a matter of covering ground and dropping the bait into each likely crevice rather than of casting.
Through the year
Resident year-round on the same rock, holding to individual crevices rather than moving with the season. Across its very wide latitudinal range the calendar means quite different things at the two ends of it, and in the Canaries it is simply always there.
Distribution
Eastern Atlantic: Spain and Portugal to Möwe Bay, Namibia. Also in the Mediterranean along the coast from Morocco, Algeria, Spain. Southwest Atlantic: Brazil and Patagonia, Argentina . Western Indian Ocean: Natal to Knysna in South Africa
This is a biological range — where the species occurs, not a prediction that you will catch one. To browse the fishing geography FishingHQ holds, start at fishing places.
Why anglers care
A light-rock-fishing and species-hunting target across an unusually wide range: the same fish is available to an angler on a Portuguese breakwater, a Lanzarote ledge, a Namibian rock coast and a Brazilian one. Taken on tiny baits and one-inch soft plastics on size 10 to 12 hooks worked into rock at close range.
Handling and returning
Wet hands and crushed barbs, unhooked in the water where possible, returned immediately. Nothing on it will hurt a person.
Where to go next
Similar and related fish
Where it lives
More fish
Not related to this page — just the rest of the section. There is little else joined to this subject yet, and a short page should still lead somewhere.
Sources and evidence
- FishBase: a global information system on fishes — Froese, R. and D. Pauly, eds. — FishBase Consortium (Scientific institute)Relied on for: Family, maximum size, depth range, environment, distribution and the IUCN assessment for Parablennius pilicornis.States this directlyPassage read and verified
- The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species — International Union for Conservation of Nature (Conservation authority)Relied on for: The Least Concern assessment for Parablennius pilicornis, assessed 27 March 2009.States this directlyCitation checked — the work exists and is described correctly
- Species hunting adventures on Lanzarote — a four-part shore diary with a full tally — Something Fishy Going On (angling blog), parts also posted to World Sea Fishing, 2014 (Practitioner report)Relied on for: That this species is taken from named public shore marks on Lanzarote, how many were caught across one week in May, and the light-tackle methods and baits that took them.States this directlyPassage read and verified
Why the 3 connections on this page are here, and the sources
Similar and related fish
Backed by research — 1 connection
Supported by peer-reviewed research or fisheries science. The sources are listed and can be checked.
Rockpool blenny
Parablennius parvicornis is recorded from 0 to 1 m and is a rockpool fish; Parablennius pilicornis is recorded from 0 to 25 m on rock faces and ledges and ranges from Iberia to Namibia and across to Brazil and South Africa.
- FishBase: a global information system on fishes — Froese, R. and D. Pauly, eds. — FishBase Consortium (Scientific institute)Relied on for: The morphology, size, depth range and distribution that separate these two species from one another.States this directlyPassage read and verified
How it is caught
Reported, not established — 1 connection
Reported, but without independent support. Recorded because it is in circulation, not because it has been shown to hold.
Light rock fishing
Recorded three times on the Puerto Calero clifftop marks on small soft plastics and scraps worked into rock at close range.
- Species hunting adventures on Lanzarote — a four-part shore diary with a full tally — Something Fishy Going On (angling blog), parts also posted to World Sea Fishing, 2014 (Practitioner report)Relied on for: The light-tackle methods, rigs, lures, baits and hook sizes a species-hunting angler used on Lanzarote, and the species each took.States this directlyPassage read and verified
Where it lives
Backed by research — 1 connection
Supported by peer-reviewed research or fisheries science. The sources are listed and can be checked.
Rocky shores and reefs
Recorded as demersal over a depth range of 0 to 25 m on rocky ground across an unusually wide latitudinal span, from 44°N to 56°S.
- FishBase: a global information system on fishes — Froese, R. and D. Pauly, eds. — FishBase Consortium (Scientific institute)Relied on for: Environment, depth range, habitat association and distribution for Parablennius pilicornis.States this directlyPassage read and verified
How FishingHQ labels evidence is explained in the evidence policy.