Would you crawl into this monster's mouth ?

[anewbie]

https://www.npr.org/2025/08/25/nx-s1-5508851/fish-pleasure-pain-cleaning

 

[Back in the fold]

Nope , and that fish is another reason I don’t like the ocean .

 

[GaryE]

There seem to be freshwater cleaner fish too.

 

[Lcc86]

I love that certain animals develop symbiotic relationships like this, it's absolutely fascinating. Like when did the first fish go hmmmm that mouth there looks like a good place to go, let me have a look!

 

[anewbie]

There seem to be freshwater cleaner fish too.

I think the more interesting aspect of the paper was that they were showing that some fishes 'like' to be cleaned and would go for a cleaning even if they did not need to be cleaned.

 

[GaryE]

I think the more interesting aspect of the paper was that they were showing that some fishes 'like' to be cleaned and would go for a cleaning even if they did not need to be cleaned.

Yup. And the same processes seem to exist with freshwater, especially with picking ectoparasites (skin parasites). Interesting stuff.

 

[WhistlingBadger]

Interesting stuff. Thanks for sharing this. (I must take issue with their assertion that fish don't bark, however...they have obviously never kept sparkling gouramis.)