Tattooed-face goby
Tattooed-face goby (Lentipes ptasan) is a small fish in the goby family. It lives in Taiwan and Mindanao in the Philippines. The name ptasan comes from the Truku language and means “facial tattoo,” referring to the dark lines on its face.
Males show a lot of color. They are usually grey with a broad dark-brown band between the bases of the second dorsal and anal fins. They may have blue or white snouts, and two black lines run from the eye through the nostrils to the snout. Along the back, there are three to six silvery patches from head to tail base.
Females are silvery-grey with brown, worm-like markings on the head and front of the body. A black stripe goes from behind the gill cover to the base of the tail, and the belly has silvery spots. An orange mark runs from the anus along the lower body. The eye has a black ring and a reddish-brown iris.
Taxonomy: Kingdom Animalia; Phylum Chordata; Class Actinopterygii; Order Gobiiformes; Family Oxudercidae; Genus Lentipes; Species Lentipes ptasan.
Found in Shimen Stream, Yilan, Taiwan, and Bocay-el Falls, Sarangani, Mindanao.
This page was last edited on 2 February 2026, at 08:20 (CET).