Cleaner fish - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Cleaner fish are fish

Fish

Fish are a paraphyletic group of organisms that consist of all gill-bearing aquatic vertebrate animals that lack limbs with digits. Included in this definition are the living hagfish, lampreys, and cartilaginous and bony fish, as well as various extinct related groups...

that provide a service to other fish species by removing dead skin

Skin

-Dermis:The dermis is the layer of skin beneath the epidermis that consists of connective tissue and cushions the body from stress and strain. The dermis is tightly connected to the epidermis by a basement membrane. It also harbors many Mechanoreceptors that provide the sense of touch and heat...

and ectoparasites. This is an example of mutualism, an ecological interaction that benefits both parties involved. A wide variety of fishes have been observed to display cleaning behaviors including wrasse

Wrasse

The wrasses are a family, Labridae, of marine fish, many of which are brightly colored. The family is large and diverse, with over 600 species in 82 genera, which are divided into nine subgroups or tribes....

s, cichlid

Cichlid

Cichlids are fishes from the family Cichlidae in the order Perciformes. Cichlids are members of a group known as the Labroidei along with the wrasses , damselfish , and surfperches . This family is both large and diverse. At least 1,300 species have been scientifically described, making it one of...

s, catfish

Catfish

Catfishes are a diverse group of ray-finned fish. Named for their prominent barbels, which resemble a cat's whiskers, catfish range in size and behavior from the heaviest and longest, the Mekong giant catfish from Southeast Asia and the second longest, the wels catfish of Eurasia, to detritivores...

, and gobies

Goby

The gobies form the family Gobiidae, which is one of the largest families of fish, with more than 2,000 species in more than 200 genera. Most are relatively small, typically less than 10 cm in length...

, as well as by a number of different species of cleaner shrimp

Cleaner shrimp

Cleaner shrimp is a generic term for any swimming decapod crustacean that cleans other organisms of parasites. This is a widely-cited example of symbiosis: a relationship in which both parties benefit. The fish benefit by having parasites removed from them, and the shrimp gain the nutritional value...

. There is also at least one predatory mimic

Aggressive mimicry

Aggressive mimicry is a form of mimicry where predators, parasites or parasitoids share similar signals with a harmless model, allowing them to avoid being correctly identified by their prey or host...

, the sabre-toothed blenny

Sabre-toothed blenny

The sabre-toothed blenny, Aspidontus taeniatus, is a species of blenny that mimics the "dance" of Labroides dimidiatus; a similarly colored species of cleaner wrasse. It tricks fish into offering their underparts to be cleaned. Instead of eating parasites from the scales of the fish, the...

, that mimics cleaner fish but in fact feeds on healthy scales and mucous.

Marine fishes

The best known cleaner fish are the cleaner wrasse

Bluestreak cleaner wrasse

The bluestreak cleaner wrasse is one of several species of cleaner wrasse found on coral reefs in the Indian Ocean and much of the Pacific Ocean, as well as many seas, including the Red Sea and those around Southeast Asia...

s of the genus Labroides found on coral reefs in the Indian Ocean

Indian Ocean

The Indian Ocean is the third largest of the world's oceanic divisions, covering approximately 20% of the water on the Earth's surface. It is bounded on the north by the Indian Subcontinent and Arabian Peninsula ; on the west by eastern Africa; on the east by Indochina, the Sunda Islands, and...

and Pacific Ocean

Pacific Ocean

The Pacific Ocean is the largest of the Earth's oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic in the north to the Southern Ocean in the south, bounded by Asia and Australia in the west, and the Americas in the east.At 165.2 million square kilometres in area, this largest division of the World...

. These small fish maintain so-called cleaning stations where other fish, known as hosts, will congregate and perform specific movements to attract the attention of the cleaner fish. Remarkably, these small cleaner fish will safely clean large predatory fish that would otherwise eat small fish such as these. Cleaner wrasses appear to get almost all their nutrition through this cleaning service, and when maintained in aquaria rarely survive for long because they cannot obtain enough to eat.

Cleaning behaviors have been observed in a number of other fish groups. Neon gobies

Goby

of the genera Gobiosoma and Elacatinus
Elacatinus
Elacatinus is a genus of marine gobies, often known collectively as the neon gobies. Although only one species, E. oceanops, is technically the "neon goby," because of their extremely similar appearance other members of the genus are generally labeled neon gobies as well.-Description:Neon gobies...

provide a cleaning service similar to the cleaner wrasses, though this time on reefs in the Western Atlantic

Atlantic Ocean

The Atlantic Ocean is the second-largest of the world's oceanic divisions. With a total area of about , it covers approximately 20% of the Earth's surface and about 26% of its water surface area...

, providing a good example of convergent evolution

Convergent evolution

Convergent evolution describes the acquisition of the same biological trait in unrelated lineages.The wing is a classic example of convergent evolution in action. Although their last common ancestor did not have wings, both birds and bats do, and are capable of powered flight. The wings are...

. Unlike the cleaner wrasses, they also eat a variety of small animals as well being cleaner fish, and generally do well in aquaria. However, the Caribbean cleaning goby (Elacatinus evelynae) will gladly eat scales and mucus from the host when the ectoparasites it normally feeds on are scarce, making the relationship somewhat less than mutually beneficial. The symbiosis

Symbiosis

Symbiosis is close and often long-term interaction between different biological species. In 1877 Bennett used the word symbiosis to describe the mutualistic relationship in lichens...

does not break down because the abundance of these parasites varies significantly seasonally and spacially, and the overall benefit to the larger fish outweighs any cheating on the part of the smaller.

Brackish water fishes

An interesting example of a cleaning symbiosis has been observed between two brackish water

Brackish water

Brackish water is water that has more salinity than fresh water, but not as much as seawater. It may result from mixing of seawater with fresh water, as in estuaries, or it may occur in brackish fossil aquifers. The word comes from the Middle Dutch root "brak," meaning "salty"...

cichlids of the genus Etroplus
Etroplus
Etroplus is a small genus of cichlids with only three species. They are found in southern India and Sri Lanka, where they are the only native cichlids.Their closest living relatives are Paretroplus from Madagascar...

from South Asia

South Asia

South Asia, also known as Southern Asia, is the southern region of the Asian continent, which comprises the sub-Himalayan countries and, for some authorities , also includes the adjoining countries to the west and the east...

. The small species Etroplus maculatus is the cleaner fish, and the much larger Etroplus suratensis
Etroplus suratensis
The green chromide is a species of cichlid fish from freshwater and brackish water in southern India and Sri Lanka...

is the host that receives the cleaning service.

Freshwater fishes

Cleaning is notably less common in freshwater habitats than in marine habitats. One of the few examples of cleaning is juvenile Striped Raphael catfish

Striped Raphael catfish

Striped Raphael catfish, Platydoras armatulus, is a catfish of the family Doradidae. It may also be called talking catfish, chocolate doradid, chocolate catfish or thorny catfish...

cleaning the piscivorous Hoplias cf. malabaricus.

Mimicry

The sabre-toothed blenny

Sabre-toothed blenny

Aspidontus taeniatus is a blenny that mimic

Aggressive mimicry

s the ritualised dance the cleaner wrasse makes when passing fish swim by. Instead of providing a useful cleaning service, however, it bites off pieces of healthy skin and scales from the host before darting away to safety.

Marine fishes

Brackish water fishes

Freshwater fishes

Mimicry

See also