‹ Fish Finder· #245
Bluestreak Cleaner Wrasse
Labroides dimidiatus
Bislamasop · glisfis— names this kind of animal, not this species alone
- Habitat
- Reef
- Max size
- 14 cm
- Depth
- 1-30 m
- Family
- Labridae
The bluestreak cleaner wrasse is one of several species of cleaner wrasses found on coral reefs from Eastern Africa and the Red Sea to French Polynesia. Like other cleaner wrasses, it eats parasites and dead tissue off larger fishes' skin in a mutualistic relationship that provides food and protection for the wrasse and considerable health benefits for the other fishes. It is also notable for having potentially passed the mirror test.
Adapted from Wikipedia, licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Easily confused with
Side by side, with what tells them apart.
A deliberate mimic, down to the cleaning dance. False Cleanerfish is a blenny: its mouth sits underneath the snout, set back, where Bluestreak Cleaner Wrasse has its mouth at the very tip. The wrasse runs a cleaning station that other fish queue at; the false cleanerfish darts in and bites a piece of fin.
See the False Cleanerfish →
Bluestriped Fangblenny copies young Bluestreak Cleaner Wrasse, dark with a blue stripe, to get close to other fish. The fangblenny's mouth is underslung and armed with fangs, and it swims in short wriggling bursts from a hole it retreats to; the wrasse's mouth is at the tip of its snout, and it holds a cleaning station in the open.
See the Bluestriped Fangblenny →
The young tubelip cleans other fish too, and is striped like the cleaner. Bluestreak Cleaner Wrasse has one black stripe from the snout that widens towards the tail, with white to bright blue above and below it. Yellowtail Tubelip has thick lips that form a short tube, white and dark brown stripes with no blue, and a tail that turns from black in the young to bright yellow in adults, which stop cleaning and feed on coral polyps.
See the Yellowtail Tubelip →
Two cleaner wrasses that both keep cleaning stations. Yellow Cleaner Wrasse has a mostly yellow head and back above its black stripe, and a black spot below the base of the pectoral fin. Bluestreak Cleaner Wrasse is white to bright blue at the front, with a black stripe that widens towards the tail; in deep water it too can show a yellow back, so look for the black spot under the pectoral fin.
See the Yellow Cleaner Wrasse →