Yellow Headed Sleeper Goby

This interesting fish excavates a hole in the sand and then uses it as a nest. Here he is excavating the hole.

He's mostly in the sand now, with just his head sticking out. A purple fire fish is blurry in the foreground at the top.

The yellow watchman goby tried to set up housekeeping with the yellow headed sleeper goby, but this did not last long. The yellow watchman goby is also known as a prawn goby, and often is found in nature sharing a hole in the sand with a blind shrimp (the prawn). When the yellow watchman goby saw the hole, some part of him must have recognized it as part of his way of life. In the end, neither of them lived in a hole in the sand.

Here he is again; His coloration was wonderful, but his habit of dropping sand all over everything was annoying to me, and probably to some of the corals. You can see some button polyps in the background at left, the fox in the foreground at right, and the rainford's goby in the background at right.