---
title: Redhead Coral Goby (Paragobiodon echinocephalus)
scientific_name: Paragobiodon echinocephalus
common_name: Redhead Coral Goby
taxon: Gobies
published: 2026-08-12T18:10:26.973Z
updated: 2026-08-12T22:19:45.238Z
tags: Redhead Coral Goby, Paragobiodon echinocephalus, Gobies, Red Sea, Marine Life, Diving
url: https://redseacreatures.com/taxon/fishes/bony-fishes/gobies/redhead-coral-goby
---

# Redhead Coral Goby (*Paragobiodon echinocephalus*)

## Quick facts

- **Group:** Gobies (*Gobiidae*)
- **Size:** up to 4 cm
- **Depth:** 2-15 m
- **Diet:** Carnivore
- **Activity:** Diurnal
- **Rarity:** Common
- **Habitat:** Inside branching Stylophora and Pocillopora colonies
- **Reproduction:** Egg layer, Protogynous hermaphrodite
- **Hazard:** Poisonous

## How to recognise it

- tiny stout fish, black body with a bright orange-red head
- head covered in short fleshy papillae, giving a velvety look
- wedged between the branches of a small stony coral
- length up to 4 cm

Four centimeters (1.6 in) of stout black fish with a bright orange-red head covered in short fleshy papillae. It lives wedged among the branches of a Stylophora or Pocillopora colony and effectively never leaves it, so the way to find one is to stop looking at the reef and start looking into a single coral head.

The coral gets something back. When a colony is touched by the toxic green alga Chlorodesmis, it releases a chemical signal, and these gobies respond by chewing the alga back - the fish that live in a coral head measurably reduce the damage the alga does. It is one of the cleanest demonstrations that a coral can call for help and be answered.

Protection runs both ways. The fish is a poor swimmer with no chance in open water, so it lives permanently inside a stinging colony that few predators will reach into, and it coats itself in a bitter skin mucus that discourages the ones that would. Its sex is negotiable: a pair forms from whichever two fish arrive, and one becomes male.

## Also known as

- **English:** Redhead Goby, Black Coral Goby, Dark Coral Goby
- **French:** Gobiodon à tête rouge
- **Portuguese:** Góbio-do-coral-de-cabeça-vermelha
- **Japanese:** ダルマハゼ, Darumahaze
- **Russian:** Коралловый бычок красноголовый
- **SMO:** Mano'o-ulutu'i

## Scientific synonyms

- *Gobius amiciensis* Valenciennes, 1837
- *Gobius echinocephalus* Rüppell, 1830

## Range

Indian Ocean, Kenya, Madagascar, Mozambique, Red Sea, Seychelles

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*Source: [Red Sea Creatures](https://redseacreatures.com/taxon/fishes/bony-fishes/gobies/redhead-coral-goby)*
*Updated: August 12, 2026*