Coryphopterus personatus

Coryphopterus personatus, commonly referred to as the masked goby, is a marine species of goby found in the western-central Atlantic Ocean.^[2]

Coryphopterus personatus
Conservation status
Vulnerable  (IUCN 3.1)[1]
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Class:	Actinopterygii
Order:	Gobiiformes
Family:	Gobiidae
Genus:	Coryphopterus
Species:	C. personatus
Binomial name
Coryphopterus personatus (D. S. Jordan & J. C. Thompson, 1905)
Synonyms
Eviota personata Jordan & Thompson, 1905

C. personatus is a cryptobenthic species, living in caves and shaded areas near the sea floor in reef communities. Masked gobies are sequential hermaphrodites and are capable of changing sexes.^[3]

Description

This species reaches a maximum length of 4.0 cm (1.6 in).^[4] This species is difficult to differentiate from the closely related C. hyalinus. C. personatus has a dark "mask" on its face, a faint dusky stripe on the lower rear margin of the body, and a translucent patch on the center of the top of its head. C. personatus is also slightly larger than C. hyalinus, which only reaches 3 cm (1.2 in).^[5]