---
title: Whitecap Goby (Lotilia graciliosa)
scientific_name: Lotilia graciliosa
common_name: Whitecap Goby
taxon: Gobies
conservation_status: DD - Data Deficient
published: 2024-11-29T22:13:18.977Z
updated: 2026-08-17T09:41:14.181Z
tags: Whitecap Goby, Lotilia graciliosa, Gobies, Red Sea, Marine Life, Diving
url: https://redseacreatures.com/taxon/fishes/bony-fishes/gobies/whitecap-goby
---

# Whitecap Goby (*Lotilia graciliosa*)

## Quick facts

- **Group:** Gobies (*Gobiidae*)
- **Size:** 3.1 cm
- **Depth:** 10-15 m
- **Diet:** Carnivore
- **Activity:** Diurnal
- **Rarity:** Uncommon
- **Habitat:** Sand and rubble patches, hovering above a shrimp burrow
- **Reproduction:** Egg layer
- **Conservation status:** DD - Data Deficient

## How to recognise it

- white cap over the head and nape, sharply cut off
- black spot with a pale rim on the first dorsal fin
- hovers 10 to 15 cm above the burrow instead of resting on the sand
- drops out of sight from several meters away
- up to 3.1 cm

Every other shrimpgoby lies on the sand at the mouth of its burrow. This one hovers. It hangs ten to fifteen centimeters above the hole, holding position on its pectoral fins, watching, and the moment anything approaches it drops and is gone.

That is also why photographs of it are rare and mostly bad. Its escape distance is several meters, far longer than the other shrimpgobies, so it has usually vanished before a diver has registered what the small white-capped fish was. Getting a picture means finding the burrow, settling down at a distance, and waiting for it to come back up, which takes minutes.

Underneath it, doing all the digging, is a snapping shrimp: in the northern Red Sea usually the [red-spotted goby shrimp](/taxon/invertebrate/crustaceans/shrimps/red-spotted-goby-shrimp). Neither animal can hold the burrow without the other.

It is small, barely three centimeters, and the IUCN lists it as Data Deficient, which is an honest way of saying nobody has counted it.

## Also known as

- **English:** Whitecap Goby, Red Sea Whitecap Shrimpgoby, Graceful Prawn Goby
- **Hebrew:** דוגון לבן-עורף
- **German:** Nonnen-Partnergrundel
- **Spanish:** Gobio Grácil Danzarín
- **Portuguese:** Góbio-gracioso-do-Mar-Vermelho
- **Czech:** hlaváč vějířoploutvý
- **Japanese:** Odorihaze
- **Chinese:** 白頭鰕虎
- **Russian:** Бело-чёрная лотилия
- **FI:** Mustaraputokko

---

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