It takes the ground nothing else wants. Sheltered bays, turbid inner lagoons, algae-covered rubble, the silty inner flats where visibility is poor and the coral is patchy or dead. Those are places a reef fish community thins out to almost nothing, and this goby is one of the few that thickens up there instead.
That makes it useful to notice. A stretch of bottom carrying starry gobies and little else is usually telling you something about the water: too much sediment, too little flow, or a reef that has been through something.
The spots are where the name comes from, small and bright over a dark body, and in adults the third spine of the front dorsal fin is drawn out into a long filament that stands up when the fish displays.
It lives in a hole or under rubble, comes out for small bottom animals, and goes straight back in. Alone usually, sometimes in loose groups where the ground is good.
The genus. Asterropteryx Rüppell 1830 - a- (privative) + sterrós (firm or stiff) + ptéryx (fin). ETYFish
The species. Asterropteryx semipunctata Rüppell 1830 - semi-. ETYFish
- tan to almost black, covered in small bright spots
- row of dark elongated marks along the side and short saddles across the back
- third dorsal spine drawn out into a long filament in adults
- in murky sheltered water where the reef gives way to rubble
- up to 6.5 cm
