Lepadogaster is a genus of clingfishes native to the eastern Atlantic Ocean extending into the Mediterranean Sea.

While most other ray-finned fish spines, branched fin-rays, and middle radials, Lepadogaster species do not have these.

Lepadogaster is known mostly as a clingfish, meaning that it spends most of its time attached to the surface of rocks.

Lepadogaster species spend their larval stages inside an intermediate host; normally plankton.

As the larvae mature and leave the plankton, they settle in the benthic layer where they enter their juvenile and adult stages.

[8] Some workers have found that while L. lepadogaster and L. purpurea are each other's closest relatives, L. candolli is not closely related to either and have proposed the placing of this species in the revived monotypic genus Mirbelia Canestrini, 1864, at least until more definitive taxonomic studies can be undertaken.