---
title: Ornate Prawn-goby (Vanderhorstia ornatissima)
scientific_name: Vanderhorstia ornatissima
common_name: Ornate Prawn-goby
taxon: Gobies
published: 2026-08-08T14:32:23.450Z
updated: 2026-08-08T15:33:37.300Z
tags: Ornate Prawn-goby, Vanderhorstia ornatissima, Gobies, Red Sea, Marine Life, Diving
url: https://redseacreatures.com/taxon/fishes/bony-fishes/gobies/ornate-prawn-goby
---

# Ornate Prawn-goby (*Vanderhorstia ornatissima*)

## Quick facts

- **Group:** Gobies (*Gobiidae*)
- **Size:** up to 9 cm
- **Depth:** 3-25 m
- **Diet:** Carnivore
- **Activity:** Diurnal
- **Rarity:** Uncommon
- **Habitat:** Sand and silty rubble, in a shrimp burrow
- **Reproduction:** Egg layer, Gonochoric

## How to recognise it

- pale body crossed by orange bars and rows of blue spots
- yellow wash over the head and the front of the body
- sits low at a burrow entrance in silty sand
- length up to 9 cm

The more ornate of the two prawn-gobies here: a pale body crossed by orange bars, rows of iridescent blue spots along the flank and a yellow wash over the head. About 9 cm (3.5 in), and like its relative it lives at the mouth of a shrimp's burrow.

Both partners are worth watching rather than photographing at once. The shrimp emerges with a load of sand held against its body, dumps it clear of the entrance and reverses back in, all the while touching the goby with an antenna; the goby holds still through this and moves only to feed or to signal danger. Silty sand near reef edges is the habitat, and a diver who settles on the bottom nearby - not on top of them - will see the whole cycle repeat every couple of minutes. What ends the show is a shadow, and the shadow is usually the diver's own.

## Also known as

- **English:** Blue-barred Shrimp-goby, Ocellate Goby, ornate prawn-goby
- **French:** Gobie orné
- **Czech:** hlaváč ozdobný
- **Japanese:** ヤツシハゼ
- **Chinese:** 黃點梵鰕虎, 黃點梵鰕虎魚
- **Russian:** Бычок-креветконос нарядный

## Range

Indian Ocean, Mozambique, Seychelles, South Africa

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*Source: [Red Sea Creatures](https://redseacreatures.com/taxon/fishes/bony-fishes/gobies/ornate-prawn-goby)*
*Updated: August 8, 2026*