The chaenopsid blenny Emblemariopsis pricei Greenfield presently is known only from waters off Belize and Honduras, where it occurs at depths of 1 to 30 m. It is unusual among Atlantic Ocean fishes in partitioning its microhabitat usage according to sex and age. During daylight, females, nonbreeding males, and immatures are found mostly on the surface of soft-coral sea fans (Gorgonia ventalina Linnaeus), whereas breeding males occupy cavities in live scleractinian corals. The cavities are the remains of serpulid worm (Spirobranchus giganteus (Pallas)) tubes, which are most often found in elkhorn coral (Acropora palmata (Lamarck)), but which also are found in species of several genera of globose mound corals. Breeding males are dark-headed and range from 17.5 to 28.6 mm standard length (SL). Adult females, adult nonbreeding males, and immatures are semitransparent; mature females attain up to 19.6 mm SL and nonbreeding males up to 24.3 mm SL. Approximately one in eight sea fans at a study reef at Carrie Bow Cay, Belize, has a blenny present. Pale adult males, presumably seeking tube cavities to occupy, frequently are found on the surface of live coral, especially in the vicinity of cavities occupied by dark-headed males. Pale males immediately enter any tube cavities that become vacant when resident dark-headed males are removed. Upon occupation, pale males turn dark headed overnight, although the full complement of dark pigment that remains evident in preserved specimens takes up to 10 days to develop. Females deposit their eggs in the tube cavities, where the resident breeding male fertilizes and incubates them. Mature females have 21 to 27 large ovarian eggs, and most tube cavities contain an average of about 300 eggs in various stages of development from multiple spawning deposits
