---
title: Steinitz Shrimpgoby (Amblyeleotris steinitzi)
scientific_name: Amblyeleotris steinitzi
common_name: Steinitz Shrimpgoby
taxon: Gobies
conservation_status: LC - Least Concern
published: 2023-12-28T21:33:45.289Z
updated: 2026-08-17T16:23:28.620Z
tags: Steinitz Shrimpgoby, Amblyeleotris steinitzi, Gobies, Red Sea, Marine Life, Diving
url: https://redseacreatures.com/taxon/fishes/bony-fishes/gobies/steinitz-shrimpgoby
---

# Steinitz Shrimpgoby (*Amblyeleotris steinitzi*)

## Quick facts

- **Group:** Gobies (*Gobiidae*)
- **Size:** 13 cm
- **Depth:** 1-43 m
- **Diet:** Detritivore
- **Activity:** Diurnal
- **Rarity:** Common
- **Habitat:** Sandy patches on reef flats, lagoons and bays
- **Reproduction:** Egg layer
- **Conservation status:** LC - Least Concern

## How to recognise it

- white body with about five wide red-brown bands
- fine pale yellow lines between the bands, orange spots on the dorsal fin
- eyes set high and protruding
- at a burrow mouth, with a snapping shrimp bulldozing sand out behind it
- up to 13 cm

The commonest shrimpgoby on this coast, and the one named for the man who built the place where most of what we know about this coast was worked out.

Heinz Steinitz founded the marine laboratory at Eilat, on the Gulf of Aqaba, and spent his life on the fauna of the northern Red Sea. The lab still stands, the fish still lives on the sand in front of it, and the species carries his name because it was described from there.

The burrow is not a fixed address. The shrimp rebuilds continuously, and the entrance the pair used yesterday can be eighty centimeters from the one they use today, which is why a patch of sand that looked settled on one dive looks rearranged on the next. The goby itself sometimes opens a new doorway by simply pushing up through the sand from inside.

It eats what the shrimp's digging turns up, and swallows sediment to strain the rest out. Neighbors matter: a goby harassed by the one next door will have the entrance moved, and a goby ready to breed moves toward a burrow of the opposite sex.

## Also known as

- **English:** Steinitz' goby, Steinitz' Prawn-goby, Steinitz' Shrimp goby
- **Arabic:** قوبيون الجمبري شتاينيتز
- **Hebrew:** סרטנונית שטייניץ
- **French:** Gobie commensal de Steinitz
- **German:** Steinitz-Partnergrundel
- **Dutch:** Steinitz symbiosegrondel
- **Japanese:** ヒメダテハゼ, Himedatehaze
- **Chinese:** 史氏鈍塘鱧, 施氏鈍塘鱧
- **Russian:** Бычок-компаньон Стейница
- **FIJ:** lokuca

## Scientific synonyms

- *Cryptocentrus steinitzi* Klausewitz, 1974

## Range

Indian Ocean, Red Sea, Republic of Mauritius

---

*Source: [Red Sea Creatures](https://redseacreatures.com/taxon/fishes/bony-fishes/gobies/steinitz-shrimpgoby)*
*Updated: August 17, 2026*