A small sand goby with a black blotch on the male's raised first dorsal fin.
A goby to about 8 cm, pale sandy grey with rows of small dark spots along the flank and blue speckling over the head and cheek. The male carries a tall first dorsal fin with a large black blotch edged in pale blue, raised when another male comes close; the female’s first dorsal is low and plain. The name refers to a strong backward-pointing spine on the cheek, which shows in a close photograph.
It sits on open sand and silt, usually in the shallower part of a slope, and moves in short darts with long pauses. It is not a shrimpgoby and holds no shared burrow, though it will use a hole made by something else when pressed. Recorded from the shallows to about 20 m.
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.
