Pale blue with yellow racing stripes, hovering over deep rubble and gone into the burrow the moment you commit to the shot.
A dartfish of deep rubble slopes, pale blue-white with several fine yellow lines running the length of the body and a yellow wash on the tail. It hovers a metre or so above its burrow, usually in a pair, feeding on plankton in the current.
It is a deep and nervous fish, and both facts work against the photographer. Below thirty metres the working time is short, the light is gone, and the animal drops into the burrow at the first sign of a strobe arm swinging. The reliable approach is to find the pair, settle several metres away, wait until they come back up, and let them close the distance themselves.
Formerly known as the Chinese zebra goby, a name still used in the aquarium trade. Distinguished from the other blue Ptereleotris by the yellow lines, which run unbroken from the head to the tail.
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.
