Notoclinops caerulepunctus
A 3cm reef fish with electric blue spots, uncommon but findable across North Island, New Zealand dive sites year-round.
At just 3cm long, this is a fish you find by looking closely at bare rock and rubble rather than scanning open water. Look for a slender, perched body dotted with small bright blue spots scattered along its flanks and head, a key giveaway against the duller mottled triplefins it shares reef space with. It rests propped on its pelvic fins rather than swimming continuously, and the three separate dorsal fins that give triplefins their name are visible if you get close.
Divers find this fish perched motionless on rock and rubble rather than swimming in the open, using its pelvic fins to prop itself up while it watches for passing prey. It stays close to its chosen patch of reef and tends to hold still as divers approach, which helps once you've spotted one, but its small size and habit of blending into the substrate make it easy to swim past. Best found by slowing down and scanning bare rock surfaces rather than reef structure with lots of cover.
Like other triplefins, it has no swim bladder, which is part of why it perches on the bottom instead of hovering in mid-water like most small reef fish.
Sightings show no clear seasonal pattern, and with a recorded temperature range of 13.6 to 22.3C it seems to tolerate both cooler and warmer North Island water, so it's reasonable to look for it across the diving calendar. Treat it as a year-round resident rather than a seasonal target.
Every logged sighting of this species comes from New Zealand, concentrated around North Island dive sites, making it effectively a North Island specialty rather than something to expect elsewhere. It turns up at reef and rocky-reef sites where divers take the time to check crevices and low rock faces rather than mid-water.
Mapping where Blue-dot Triplefin is logged…
It's logged exclusively in New Zealand, with sightings concentrated on North Island dive sites. Outside the North Island it hasn't been recorded by divers.
There's no detected seasonal pattern, and it's been recorded across a wide temperature range from 13.6 to 22.3C, so it's a year-round find on North Island reefs rather than a seasonal target.
Look for a tiny, 3cm fish perched still on bare rock rather than swimming, with small bright blue dots scattered across its body. Its three separate dorsal fins mark it as a triplefin rather than a blenny.
They stay small, reaching around 3cm in length, which makes them one of the harder reef fish to spot without slowing down and checking rock surfaces closely.
It's rated uncommon at all the North Island sites where it's been recorded, so seeing one takes a bit of deliberate searching rather than a chance encounter.
Site and sighting data is aggregated from diver logs, iNaturalist and GBIF. For taxonomy and conservation status:
Klipfish
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