Butidae

{{Short description|Family of ray-finned fishes}}

{{for|other gobies with this family's common name|sleeper goby (disambiguation)}}

{{Automatic taxobox

| image = Crazy fish, Butis butis (Hamilton, 1822) by M. L. Nievera (colored).png

| image_caption = Butis butis

| image2 = Eleotris ophiocephalus Ford 67.jpg

| image2_caption = Ophiocara porocephala

| taxon = Butidae

| authority = Bleeker, 1874{{cite journal | author1 = Richard van der Laan | author2 = William N. Eschmeyer | author3 = Ronald Fricke | name-list-style = amp |year=2014 | title = Family-group names of Recent fishes | url = https://biotaxa.org/Zootaxa/article/view/zootaxa.3882.1.1/10480 | journal = Zootaxa | volume = 3882 | issue =2 | pages = 001–230| doi = 10.11646/zootaxa.3882.1.1 | pmid = 25543675 | doi-access = free }}

}}

Butidae is a family of sleeper gobies in the order Gobiiformes. The family was formerly classified as a subfamily of the Eleotridae but the 5th Edition of Fishes of the World classifies it as a family in its own right.{{cite web | url = https://81a86d48-a-62cb3a1a-s-sites.googlegroups.com/site/fotw5th/home/FotW5Classification.pdf?attachauth=ANoY7crnPmFXqnJpmRlpzLSdqx8GmsCmFXNBj8fAYuPuhFBvCfHo4TahH7eM_yruTzHI27nZRRWWJPRR7U9HopPBRlQK8iW_73EG6FVke6aUjl20fgZXiChDnl-xqMl4L2I-wHwV7D4qcPAQI1vSV6YfFYAm5qb7t5w0rJ_ierkZ91ezIvpQ_5f0kSbFiUx-YYGXP1US1GbwSf-G7sRx4XEikm73VqVA0idVnlkaFjzI53bkuIQY0OQ%3D&attredirects=0 | title = Classification of fishes from Fishes of the World 5th Edition | author1 = Nelson, JS | author2 = Grande, TC | author3 = Wilson, MVH | name-list-style = amp | year = 2016 | accessdate = 10 May 2018 | archive-date = 20 January 2022 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20220120135002/https://81a86d48-a-62cb3a1a-s-sites.googlegroups.com/site/fotw5th/home/FotW5Classification.pdf?attachauth=ANoY7crIfB6q0amFyPzpVw0HNKYpziyjiVSv52zf5VgSIrevDuVCDf0Ot9atbJNEMBm8Ufsi0yeE3VQhEvhNf1FSa2N967AptcN3CZJ907ptO-uYBVkWdPPRwo2mSe6I9gw1z8evk-bCqUF0pT_FcIAXBJI2aDSmzPCbmlu1aUOlm5dqf-2bG00OGc5PMxC7sZql1Bfz-_3pUYASCWoAkJ48dYFaVVrYDBYgi8NliIZfsthrsX-NmVQ=&attredirects=1 | url-status = dead }} Molecular phylogenetic analyses have demonstrated that the Butidae are a sister clade to the clade containing the families Gobiidae and Gobionellidae and that the Eleotridae is a sister to both of these clades. This means that the Eloetridae as formerly classified was paraphyletic and that its subfamilies should be raised to the status of families.

The species in the Butidae are largely restricted to tropical and sub-tropical waters of Africa, Asia, Australia, and Oceania. They are especially diverse in New Guinea, Australia and New Zealand where they can be important components of brackish and freshwater ecosystems.{{cite book | author = Christine Thacker | url = https://nhm.org/site/sites/default/files/ichthyology/pdf/ThackerButidaeEleotridae2011.pdf | chapter = Chapter 1.5 Systematics of Butidae and Eleotridae | publisher = CRC Press | year = 2011 | title = The Biology of Gobies | editor1 = Robert Patzner | editor2 = James L. Van Tassell | editor3 = Marcelo Kovacic | editor4 = B. G. Kapoor | isbn = 978-1578084364 | access-date = 2018-07-22 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20160728181051/http://www.nhm.org/site/sites/default/files/ichthyology/pdf/ThackerButidaeEleotridae2011.pdf | archive-date = 2016-07-28 | url-status = dead }} They are mostly quite small species but the marbled goby (Oxyeleotris marmorata) is a freshwater species of Buitdae from Southeast Asia that can grow to {{convert|65|cm|in|abbr=on|1}} long and is an important food fish.Riehl, R. & Baensch, H.A. (1996): Aquarium Atlas (Volume 1). Voyageur Press. p. 992. {{ISBN|978-3-88244-050-8}}{{FishBase |genus= Oxyeleotris|species= marmorata| month = September | year = 2017}}