Pacific Blue-eye Identification Guide

Key identification features

• Small, slender, slightly compressed body, rarely over 4-5 cm
• Translucent silvery body with a faint yellow-green sheen
• Distinctive bright blue iridescent ring around the eye
• Two dorsal fins, the first small and flag-like
• Males show a yellow tint and dark edging on the first dorsal and anal fins
• Fine dark speckling sometimes visible along the upper flank
• Rounded caudal fin, often held fanned when displaying
• Very thin, almost see-through body when viewed against light

Common look-alikes

• Hardyhead silverside: lacks the blue eye-ring and instead has a single, unbroken silvery lateral stripe.
• Empire gudgeon fry: an unrelated fish that often schools alongside blue-eyes, but has a rounder head and a single dorsal fin rather than two.
• Firetail gudgeon: much stockier bodied and without a blue eye-ring.

Where you'll see one

Common in coastal creeks, estuaries, and brackish lagoons of eastern Australia, from central Queensland south to New South Wales, often forming small surface-dwelling schools in quiet, sunlit shallows near overhanging vegetation and among fallen leaf litter.