Five broad red bars over a pale body, with fine blue spotting on the head and fins.
A shrimpgoby to about 10 cm, whitish to pale pink and crossed by five broad orange to red-brown bars, with the head, body and fins finely covered in small pale blue spots. The combination is the identification. Amblyeleotris steinitzi has the same number of bars but they are plain brown and the head is unmarked; Amblyeleotris guttata is spotted orange rather than barred; Amblyeleotris randalli has a tall first dorsal fin carrying a dark ocellus, which this species does not. Bar colour varies and can read brown rather than red on a pale bottom, but the blue spotting persists.
Lives in a shared burrow with an alpheid snapping shrimp, as the rest of the genus does. The shrimp excavates the tunnel and pushes the spoil out, keeping one antenna in contact with the fish; the goby holds station at the mouth and watches, and a flick of the tail sends the shrimp back underground. Feeds on small crustaceans taken from just above the sand.
Recorded from about 5 to 30 m on sand and rubble near reef rather than out on fine silt. It is among the less nervous of the barred shrimpgobies and holds at the entrance longer than Stonogobiops will, which makes it one of the easier ones to work at close range.
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.
