The commonest shrimpgoby on the sand, in bright yellow or plain grey depending on the fish.
A stout shrimpgoby to about 10 cm in two colour forms that look like different fish: a plain bright yellow one, sometimes with fine blue spots on the head, and a grey-brown one with five or six darker bars and blue spotting. Both occur at the same sites and neither is confined to one sex. The head is blunt and the eyes are set high.
The standard introduction to the shrimpgoby partnership, because it is common, shallow and tolerant. An alpheid shrimp excavates and continually repairs the burrow, pushing spoil out in bulldozer loads, while the goby lies at the entrance on watch; the shrimp keeps one antenna in contact with the goby’s flank and reads its movements, and a flick of the goby’s tail sends both underground. Neither does well without the other. Recorded from the shallows to about 25 m on soft bottoms. A slow approach from a metre out, staying low, usually buys several minutes of shrimp activity.
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.
