Gobies of the genus Odontamblyopus ^ZBK (Gobiidae: Amblyopinae) are given the vernacular name of eel gobies or worm gobies, which refers to their long and slender bodies.

Odontamblyopus ^ZBK inhabits mud bottom habitats from the West Coast of India eastward to Japan.

In their review of Odontamblyopus ^ZBK, Murdy and Shibukawa (2001) indicated that the genus comprised four species; they provided a key to species as well as a descriptive account of each. Recently, 37 specimens of an Odontamblyopus ^ZBK not fitting the key or descriptive accounts in Murdy and Shibukawa (2001) were collected from a fish market on the east side of Haiphong City, Vietnam. The objective of this paper is to describe this species as new and compare it with congeners.