---
title: Bluestriped Dottyback (Pseudochromis springeri)
scientific_name: Pseudochromis springeri
common_name: Bluestriped Dottyback
taxon: Dottyback
conservation_status: LC - Least Concern
published: 2024-11-07T21:26:14.714Z
updated: 2026-08-21T11:40:58.668Z
tags: Bluestriped Dottyback, Pseudochromis springeri, Dottyback, Red Sea, Marine Life, Diving
url: https://redseacreatures.com/taxon/fishes/bony-fishes/dottyback/bluestriped-dottyback
---

# Bluestriped Dottyback (*Pseudochromis springeri*)

## Quick facts

- **Group:** Dottyback (*Pseudochromidae*)
- **Size:** 5.5 cm
- **Depth:** 2-60 m
- **Diet:** Carnivore
- **Activity:** Diurnal
- **Rarity:** Common
- **Habitat:** Branching corals and reef crevices
- **Reproduction:** Egg layer
- **Endemic:** Endemic to the Red Sea
- **Conservation status:** LC - Least Concern

## How to recognise it

- black body with bright blue lines along the head and forebody
- one of the smallest fish you will notice on the reef, under 6 cm
- always within a body length of a hole
- up to 5.5 cm

Five and a half centimeters, and it will see off a fish ten times its size.

Dottybacks are among the most aggressive fish on a reef relative to their weight, and this one is at the small end of the family. It holds a crevice, a few branches of coral and the water immediately above them, and it defends that against damselfish, wrasses, other dottybacks and anything else that comes within about a body length, by charging directly at the face.

The bluff works because of what is behind it. The fish never fights more than a flick away from a hole it can fit into and the intruder cannot, so the worst case for the dottyback is a fast retreat, while the worst case for the intruder is being bitten in the eye. Anything larger does the arithmetic and leaves.

It is black with bright blue lines drawn along the head and the front of the body, which is unmistakable when you get close and nearly invisible when you do not, because at any distance it reads as a small dark shape vanishing into coral.

Like almost all its relatives here, it lives in the Red Sea and nowhere else.

## Also known as

- **English:** bluestriped dottyback, Blue-striped Dottyback, Livid Dottyback
- **French:** Pseudochromis à rayures bleues
- **German:** Springers Zwergbarsch
- **Spanish:** Perca enana de Springer
- **Portuguese:** Pseudodonzela-de-linhas-neon
- **Czech:** sapínovec Springerův
- **Chinese:** 斯氏擬雀鯛
- **ET:** Springeri tilluahven

## Range

Red Sea

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*Source: [Red Sea Creatures](https://redseacreatures.com/taxon/fishes/bony-fishes/dottyback/bluestriped-dottyback)*
*Updated: August 21, 2026*