Mandarin Fish belong to a family of fishes called dragonets (though are commonly misidentified as Mandarin Goby) and are among the tropical reefs' most colorful fish: with psychedelic oranges, blues, purples and greens, the fish look like they are decorated with multi-colored neon. 
Encounters
Even with their distinctive markings, Mandarin fish are very difficult to find. They live in pairs, and groups of up to five. You can usually spot them in the hours right before darkness when they come out to mate. They swim out from the corals they live in, and quickly dart back in where they are hidden. They are very shy and this makes them extremely difficult to photograph.
The Philippines and Indonesia are excellent places to see the mandarin fish with ZeroBar.org.
Scientific Name:
Synchiropus Splendidus
Diet:
mysids, amphipods, isopods and benthic copepods
Facts:
Mandarin Fish prefer to live on fringing reefs on continental islands and on rubbly coral bottoms;
are between 1 and 2 inches long (20 to 55 millimeters);
prefers depths of 1 to 18 meters;
as popular aquarium pets, the demand for Mandarin Fish is putting pressure on their wild populations;
they lack scales, and posses a skin thick with mucus helping them stay immune to parasitic fish diseases;
are dimorphic: males tend to have more orange coloration in their face, and have larger bodies, while females have smaller dorsal fins;
are among the ocean's smallest fish that reproduce by spawning;
have an intricate mating ritual that favors older males, females will gather at dusk in small groups as older males court them
Research and Conservation Agencies
Dr Sadovy's Home Page:
http://www.hku.hk/ecology/staffhp/ys/ys.htm
Mandarinfish Mating Ritual: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2001/04/0423_mandarinfish.html
mandarin fish photos by Kelly O'Connell