Yellow-headed shrimpgoby with black diagonal bars and a long dorsal filament, sharing a burrow with a snapping shrimp.
A slender shrimpgoby to about 6 cm, white with three or four black bars set at a steep diagonal and a yellow head. The first dorsal fin is high and its leading spine extends into a long filament, which is the origin of both the high-fin and filament-finned names in circulation. The fish hovers nose-up in the water column above its hole rather than resting on the bottom, a posture which by itself separates it from most other shrimpgobies on the same slope. Stonogobiops yasha is the species most often confused with it and differs in its white snout and orange-red rather than black barring.
Shares a burrow with the snapping shrimp Alpheus randalli, which excavates and continually repairs the tunnel while the goby stands sentry; the shrimp keeps an antenna in contact with the goby’s body and reads its movements. Pairs are usual and a burrow may hold two gobies and two shrimps. Recorded from about 5 m to beyond 40 m on open sand and rubble, and one of the more approachable shrimpgobies once the fish has settled — it will hold position at a metre if the approach is made low and without sudden movement.
Ratings are per location: 1 means found on most dives that look for it, 5 means a handful of records. Where enough dives have been logged the figure is calculated from them; otherwise it is an editorial estimate, and says so. We publish habitat and destination, not the dive site.
