A pale blue-grey dartfish that hovers in pairs above a burrow on rubble and drops into it at any speed of approach.
To 12 cm. Pale bluish-grey with lavender tones. A blue stripe runs from between the eyes back to the start of the dorsal fin, there is a pair of blue stripes behind each eye and a yellow stripe under the head. The dorsal and anal fins are greenish-yellow with red margins, the tail margins are red, and the tail itself is rounded. The mouth is very oblique.
The blue dartfish is the confusion and the tail settles it: rounded with red margins here, long and pointed with dark upper and lower edges there. That species also has a black stripe along the outer edge of the dorsal fin and runs further north.
It lives in a U-shaped burrow in sand or coral rubble and hovers head-down above the entrance picking plankton out of the water, diving into the burrow when approached. Pairs are monogamous. It lives between 3 and 60 m and has been recorded far deeper.
It is common in the Bahamas and Cayman. In Florida it occurs only in the southeast and is uncommon.
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.
