A small bottom-dwelling fish with a flattened, wedge-shaped head, eyes set high on top and a body tapering back to a narrow tail. Color is sandy yellow with fine darker speckling that matches the grains it rests on, and the identifying mark sits on the first dorsal fin: a dark to black area at its rear edge, raised and obvious when the male flicks the fin up in display. Length reaches about 5 cm (2 in).
It lives on open sand and rubble patches beside the reef between about 5 and 30 m (16 and 100 ft), resting motionless on the bottom and moving in short hops on thickened pelvic fins rather than swimming. Feeding is by picking small crustaceans and worms from the sediment through the day. Dragonets have no swim bladder and no scales, relying instead on stillness and color - which is why the usual way to find this one is to watch a patch of sand until something that looked like a ripple moves. It was described from 🌊 Red Sea material and is regularly photographed around Dahab.
The species. Callionymus flavus Fricke 1983 - yellow. ETYFish
- small, flat-headed, yellowish - sits on the sand
- black area at the rear of the first dorsal fin
- moves in short hops, never far above the bottom
