---
title: Loki Whipgoby (Bryaninops loki)
scientific_name: Bryaninops loki
common_name: Loki Whipgoby
taxon: Gobies
conservation_status: LC - Least Concern
published: 2024-11-21T09:31:55.990Z
updated: 2026-08-25T07:58:18.954Z
tags: Loki Whipgoby, Bryaninops loki, Gobies, Red Sea, Marine Life, Diving
url: https://redseacreatures.com/taxon/fishes/bony-fishes/gobies/loki-whipgoby
---

# Loki Whipgoby (*Bryaninops loki*)

## Quick facts

- **Group:** Gobies (*Gobiidae*)
- **Size:** up to 4.5 cm
- **Depth:** 6-45 m
- **Diet:** Planktivore
- **Activity:** Diurnal
- **Rarity:** Uncommon
- **Habitat:** sea whips and gorgonian corals
- **Reproduction:** Egg layer
- **Conservation status:** LC - Least Concern

## How to recognise it

- always on a sea whip or gorgonian, never loose in the water
- translucent body with narrow red bars and brown saddles
- brown blotch at the base of the tail
- pale line running along the spine
- up to 4.5 cm

To breed, this goby damages the animal it lives on. It bites the living polyps off a short length of its sea whip, leaves a bare strip of skeleton, and sticks the egg clutch to it. The male then sits over the eggs and fans them until they hatch. Gobies of this genus do it on wire corals, sea whips and gorgonians alike, and the cleared patch stays visible on the host afterward.

Everything else about the fish follows from living on a branch no thicker than a pencil lead. The pelvic fins are joined underneath into a disc that grips the coral, so the goby can hold station in current without swimming. It shuffles around the branch rather than off it, keeping the whip between itself and whatever is approaching, which is why the photograph you get is usually of the far side of a sea whip.

At a maximum of about 4.5 centimeters, and commonly nearer 3, it is close to invisible. The body is translucent, crossed by narrow red bars that broaden into a dusky golden tone below, with brown saddles along the back and a brown blotch at the base of the tail. A pale line runs the length of the spine. Against a whip of the same color, none of that reads until you are half a meter away.

It turns up between about 6 and 45 meters, wherever sea whips and gorgonians grow on slopes and walls with some water movement. In this sea it has been photographed at Sharm El Naga and recorded from Sudan, the Sinai coast and the Gulf of Aden, and the same species runs east across the Indo-Pacific to Hawaii.

The practical advice is to stop searching the water and start searching the coral. Pick a whip, follow it from the base up, and look for a dark blotch that moves.

## Also known as

- **English:** Loki Whip-goby, Loki Whip Goby, White-line Seawhip Goby
- **Portuguese:** Góbio-de-Loki
- **Japanese:** ホソガラスハゼ, Hosogarasuhaze
- **Chinese:** 寬鰓珊瑚鰕虎, 寬鰓珊瑚鰕虎魚, 羅氏珊瑚鰕虎

---

*Source: [Red Sea Creatures](https://redseacreatures.com/taxon/fishes/bony-fishes/gobies/loki-whipgoby)*
*Updated: August 25, 2026*