Most shrimpgobies want clean sand and clear water. This one goes where the runoff comes down.
It lives in silty lagoons and coastal bays, in the murky water near stream mouths and drainage, which is the habitat the rest of the family avoids and which is therefore mostly empty of competitors. Silt is hard on a fish: it clogs gills, it kills coral, it cuts the light. What it also does is keep other things away, and an animal that can tolerate it gets a lot of ground to itself.
Telling it from the other shrimpgobies is easy once you know what to look at. The Amblyeleotris species are slim, pale and finely barred. Cryptocentrus is stocky and blunt-headed, dark, and blotched down the side, and it sits lower and heavier at the burrow mouth.
The blue speckling over the head and body is what the scientific name refers to, and in poor visibility it is often the first thing that resolves out of the murk.
The species. Cryptocentrus caeruleopunctatus (Rüppell 1830) - caeruleus (dark blue) + punctatus (spotted). ETYFish
- stocky gray-brown body with greenish bars and a row of large dark blotches along the side
- blue dots over head and body, pink spots on the head
- heavier and blunter than the barred Amblyeleotris shrimpgobies, which are slim and pale
- up to 10 cm
Why it's threatened
There are no known major threats to this species.
Threat classification from the IUCN Red List.
