Which fish is known for cleaning other fish?

The cleaner wrasse is known for cleaning other fish. At specialized reef sites called cleaning stations, it removes parasites, dead tissue, and sometimes mucus from larger “client” fish.

The best-known example is the bluestreak cleaner wrasse, Labroides dimidiatus, which lives on tropical reefs across the Indian Ocean and western Pacific. A client fish signals that it wants service by adopting a characteristic posture, allowing the small wrasse to swim over its skin and sometimes into its mouth or gill chambers.

This relationship is a famous example of cleaning symbiosis. The wrasse receives food, while the client may benefit from having irritating ectoparasites removed. The arrangement is not always perfectly mutualistic: cleaner wrasses sometimes eat healthy mucus or tissue, behavior scientists describe as “cheating.”

Parrotfish can help control algae by scraping reefs, angelfish are mainly grazers or predators, and clownfish associate with sea anemones. All may interact with other species, but cleaning other fish is the signature behavior associated with cleaner wrasses.