Cleaner fish facts for kids
Cleaner fish are fish that provide a service to other fish species by removing dead skin and ectoparasites. This is an example of mutualism, an ecological interaction that benefits both parties.
A wide variety of fishes show cleaning behaviors. They include wrasse, cichlids, catfish, and gobies, as well as by a number of different species of cleaner shrimp.
Cleaner fish advertise their services with conspicuous coloration, often displaying a brilliant blue stripe that spans the length of the body. This adaptation has evolved independently in different species of cleaner fish, making it an example of convergent evolution.
Other species of fish, called mimics, imitate the behavior and phenotype of cleaner fish to gain access to client fish tissue. This is another example of convergent evolution. There is the sabre-toothed blenny. It mimics cleaner fish but in fact bites off pieces of fin.
Images for kids
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Client Mulloidichthys flavolineatus at a cleaning station.
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Protein structure of non-mammalian specific hormone, vasotocin, from the posterior pituitary.
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The bluestriped fangblenny is an aggressive mimic of the cleaner wrasse.
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An example of an outdoor aquaculture facility in Chile.
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Sea lice causing morphological damage on cultured salmon in New Brunswick, Canada.
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A disruptively patterned white-spotted puffer being cleaned by a conspicuously coloured Hawaiian cleaner wrasse.
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Lumpfish (Cyclopterus lumpus), a cleaner fish employed in salmon farming in Atlantic Canada, Scotland, Iceland and Norway
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A neon goby from the Western Atlantic.
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See also
In Spanish: Peces limpiadores para niños
