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The best known cleaning symbioses are among marine fishes, where several species of small fish, notably of wrasse, are specialised in colour, pattern and behaviour as cleaners, providing a cleaning and ectoparasite removal service to larger, often predatory fish.
This example of cleaning symbiosis represents mutualism and cooperation behaviour, an ecological interaction that benefits both parties involved. However, the cleaner fish may consume mucus or tissue, thus creating a form of parasitism called cheating.
Cleaning symbiosis is well known among marine fish, where some small species of cleaner fish – notably wrasses, but also species in other genera – are specialized to feed almost exclusively by cleaning larger fish and other marine animals.
Cleaner shrimp are so called because they exhibit a cleaning symbiosis with client fish where the shrimp clean parasites from the fish. The fish benefit by having parasites removed from them, and the shrimp gain the nutritional value of the parasites.
Cleaner wrasses are the best-known of the cleaner fish. They live in a cleaning symbiosis with larger, often predatory, fish, grooming them and benefiting by consuming what they remove.
A cleaning station is a location where aquatic life congregate to be cleaned by smaller beings. Such stations exist in both freshwater and marine environments, and are used by animals including fish, sea turtles and hippos.
The fish is endemic to Hawaii. These cleaner fish inhabit coral reefs, setting up a territory referred to as a cleaning station . They obtain a diet of small crustacean parasites by removing them from other reef fish in a cleaning symbiosis .
An example of reciprocal altruism is cleaning symbiosis, such as between cleaner fish and their hosts, though cleaners include shrimps and birds, and clients include fish, turtles, octopuses and mammals.
Commensalism. Remora are specially adapted to attach themselves to larger fish (or other animals, in this case a sea turtle) that provide locomotion and food. Commensalism is a long-term biological interaction ( symbiosis) in which members of one species gain benefits while those of the other species neither benefit nor are harmed. [1]
Hosts of many species are involved in cleaning symbiosis, both in the sea and on land, making use of smaller animals to clean them of parasites. Cleaners include fish, shrimps and birds; hosts or clients include a much wider range of fish, marine reptiles including turtles and iguanas, octopus, whales, and terrestrial mammals. [4]