Walks on modified pelvic fins across open sand, and raises a tall first dorsal when displaying.
By far the largest dragonet a muck diver meets, to about 30 cm, and named for the character that identifies it: on each pelvic fin the spine and first ray are fused into an elongate rod set apart from the rest of the fin, so the fish appears to have a free finger on each side. It walks on them, probing the sediment, rather than swimming. Colour is mottled sandy brown and cryptic. Males carry long filaments on the first dorsal fin, which in adults also shows a distinct horizontal line pattern; that dimorphism is the easiest way to sex one. The confusions are with its congener the orange-and-black dragonet, and with its own juveniles, which mimic drifting leaves and debris well enough to be missed entirely.
Protected sand and mud flats and slopes, estuaries and weedy sand, between about 1 and 55 m, from Japan south to Australia. Solitary or in pairs, feeding on small invertebrates taken from the sediment. The “walking on fingers” description is supported by plenty of video but has not been studied functionally, so what the appendages actually do — whether they are mainly sensory, or mainly for stirring the sediment, or both — is description rather than result. One housekeeping note that applies to this species and the mandarinfish: WoRMS puts the dragonets in their own order, Callionymiformes, while several other authorities place them with the pipefish and seahorses in Syngnathiformes. This site follows WoRMS.
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.
