Scartelaos is a genus of true mudskippers (family Gobiidae, subfamily Oxudercinae) found across intertidal mudflats and mangroves of the Indo-Pacific, with the atlas's records spanning Bangladesh, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Myanmar, Sri Lanka, Thailand, and Australia. Like other mudskippers, its two species -- S. histophorus and S. tenuis -- are amphibious gobies able to leave the water entirely, using muscular pectoral fins to skip and crawl across exposed mud at low tide while breathing through the skin and the lining of the mouth and throat. Compared with the bulging-eyed, stocky Periophthalmus mudskippers most aquarists picture, Scartelaos species tend toward a slimmer, more elongate, eel-like body, and reach a moderate 5.5–7 in as adults.
Common names reflect that lifestyle directly -- S. histophorus is known as the Walking goby and S. tenuis as the Slender mudskipper. Neither is a mainstream aquarium fish; keeping any mudskipper well requires a paludarium-style setup with both land and brackish or marine water rather than a standard aquarium, which limits the genus mostly to specialist keepers. Conservation-wise, both species are Not Evaluated, typical for wide-ranging mudflat and mangrove fish across a region where formal assessment has lagged behind the fauna's actual range.