Oxyeleotris is a genus of sleeper gobies distributed across Southeast Asia and the Australia–New Guinea region. The atlas covers 5 species spanning an unusually wide size range, from around 3 in up to 21.5 in, with records from Papua New Guinea, Australia, Indonesia, Cambodia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand, and Vietnam. Like other sleeper gobies, Oxyeleotris species have elongated, cylindrical bodies, large heads with an upturned mouth, and two separate dorsal fins, and they behave as sit-and-wait ambush predators, resting motionless on or near the substrate in slow rivers, swamps, and floodplain lakes before lunging at passing prey.
The genus's largest member, Oxyeleotris marmorata (the marble goby), is one of Southeast Asia's most economically important freshwater food fishes, farmed at scale across the region for its firm, mild flesh, while O. lineolata (lined sleeper) is a smaller relative taken from similar habitats. The Australian O. selheimi (blackbanded gudgeon) is better known as a predatory aquarium fish, valued by specialist keepers for its patient, ambush-hunting behaviour, though its size and appetite for smaller tankmates suit it only to large, predator-focused setups. With two atlas species rated Least Concern and three not yet formally evaluated, the genus is not flagged as a conservation concern, though the scale of the marble-goby food fishery makes its wild populations worth watching.