Life

Distinguishing the cleaner

In the cleaning stations which we mentioned here above, often there is also a strange fish that may be confused with the cleaner wrasse. Instead, this fish belongs to the Blenny family: it is of the same size as the cleaner fish, it has the same colouring, it also moves in an identical manner and even imitates the famous cleaner fish’s dance perfectly, but unlike the cleaner fish, it has powerful teeth and in fact it is known as the sabre toothed blenny. All the fish that are already accustomed to the cleaner fish, show a friendly attitude with their cleaning request, also when they see this “perfect impostor”, but they are in for a terrible surprise. In fact the imitator goes near to the fish that would like to be cleaned and with a powerful bite it cuts off a piece of the unfortunate fish’s fin and swallows it. The wounded fish turns around immediately, but the fake cleaner, like a professional actor, remains absolutely still seeming perfectly innocent and with this “trick” it saves itself from the aggression.