Rows of dark dashes on a pale body; one of the commonest fish on open muck sand.
A slender sand goby to about 14 cm, whitish to pale sandy with four or five rows of small dark brown spots and short dashes running the length of the body, and further rows of fine dark spots and lines across the cheek and snout. The dorsal and tail fins are marked with rows of small spots. The genus is the difficulty: Istigobius ornatus is very similar but carries bolder, more continuous dark lengthwise dashes and keeps to silty inshore and estuarine ground; Istigobius rigilius has a row of larger, squarer dark blotches along the midline. Against the barred Amblygobius gobies the separation is straightforward, since those carry vertical bars rather than rows of dots.
Sits directly on open sand in the shallows, moving in short darts of half a metre and settling again, and picks small crustaceans, worms and other small invertebrates from the surface; it also takes mouthfuls of sand and sorts them. Usually solitary or in loose pairs, without a fixed burrow, and it retreats across the sand rather than into a hole, which is why it can be followed for some distance. Recorded from a metre or so down to about 25 m across every one of these destinations. Its abundance is the reason it is generally ignored, though it is often the first fish that settles again after a diver has disturbed a patch of sand, and it is a straightforward subject for anyone learning to work close to the bottom without stirring silt.
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.
