Saturday, November 21, 2009

A Little Cleaner



I'm fascinated with the various symbiotic relationships on the reef. An easy one to spot is the cleaner wrasse who helps/harrases all the other fish by removing parasites. They were so plentiful around the Similan islands... watching one chasing after a puffer, I suddenly felt a strong nip on the corner of my mouth. I jumped back and saw the little cleaner swim away. Ahhhhh. After the first encounter, I tried to encourage them and again one came back and started trying to clean me. I was laughing under water. The dive masters said that sometimes the cleaners try to go in their ears which is not so welcome. :)

Here's one cleaning Curtis' fin.

1 comment:

Manasi said...

hehe :) thats funny :)