Gobiodon okinawae
Bright yellow and barely 3cm long, this coral-dwelling goby turns up around Nouméa, New Caledonia in water near 26-29°C.
Solid, almost neon yellow from head to tail with no stripes or spots, this fish tops out at about 3 cm, so you are looking for a colour flash rather than a shape. Body is short and stubby, typical goby-shaped with a blunt head, and it perches upright on coral branches rather than swimming freely in open water. There is no reported difference in colour between juveniles and adults, so any size you see should look the same solid yellow.
Look for it sitting still among the branches of its host coral, usually a species of Acropora, rarely straying more than a body length from home. It tends to dart back into the coral thicket the moment a diver or their bubbles get close, so slow, steady approaches and a bit of patience pay off. Most sightings happen while divers are working slowly along a coral head rather than cruising past it.
Coral gobies like this one live their whole adult lives on a single coral colony, feeding on mucus and small invertebrates on its surface, and some species in the genus can actually switch sex to pair up with whatever goby settles on the same coral head.
No clear seasonal pattern shows up in the sighting data, and with a comfortable range of about 25 to 29°C it should be present on its host corals year-round. Plan the dive around finding the right coral head rather than a particular month.
Reef neighbours a diver could mistake it for. Use the identification notes above to tell them apart.
Logged diving is currently concentrated around Nouméa in New Caledonia, where it turns up as an uncommon find on coral heads rather than a guaranteed sighting. As a species tied to branching stony corals across the Indo-Pacific, it likely occurs more widely than current logs show, but Nouméa is the confirmed spot to search.
Mapping where Yellow Coral Goby is logged…
Confirmed sightings come from around Nouméa in New Caledonia, where divers find it living on coral heads. It is likely present elsewhere in the Indo-Pacific on suitable branching corals, but this is the region with logged records.
There is no detected season for this fish, and it sits comfortably in water from about 25 to 29°C, so it should be findable on its host coral year-round.
Look for a tiny, solid bright yellow fish, no more than 3 cm, perched motionless among the branches of a stony coral. There are no stripes, spots or colour breaks to check, the uniform yellow body is the giveaway.
They stay tiny, typically around 3 cm as full adults, which makes spotting them on a coral head a slow, close-up search rather than a distant sighting.
It spends essentially its whole adult life on one coral colony, and like other coral gobies it can change sex to pair with whatever individual settles on the same coral head.
No, it poses no risk to divers. At 3 cm and firmly tucked into coral branches, the only challenge is spotting it, not avoiding it.
Site and sighting data is aggregated from diver logs, iNaturalist and GBIF. For taxonomy and conservation status:
Slender Goby
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