SUSAN SCOTT PHOTO A striped cleaner wrasse in Raiatea nibbles on Susan Scott’s leg. The wrasses’ customers seem to love the service, flocking to the wrasse cleaning stations usually held in an ...

A cleaner wrass with an island jack customer. Select an option below to continue reading this premium story. Already a Honolulu Star-Advertiser subscriber? Log in now to continue reading. Not all fish ...

Do you know that the fish here in Hawai‘i go to the dentist on a regular basis to have their teeth cleaned? From large sharks to young yellow tangs, they all get free dental work, but they must go to ...

Controversial new research shows that a tiny, unsuspecting species of fish can pass a test that’s widely considered the gold standard of intelligence. As far as we can tell, only a few of the most ...

Mirror tests are used to assess an animal’s response to its reflection. Explore how fish react and learn if they possess self-awareness. Avery Hurt is a freelance science journalist who frequently ...

A FISH species examines itself in the mirror before deciding whether to fight in what scientists call the first instance of animal self-awareness. The bluestreak cleaner wrasse is native to the waters ...

It’s not easy for fish to clean themselves, without limbs or digits to scrub those hard-to-reach places. Fortunately for them, coral reefs come with cleaning stations. At particular sites, an itchy ...

If you're not really into salt-water tanks or don't spend a lot of time in coral reefs, there's still a high probability you may have heard of the bluestreak cleaner wrasse fish. Likely because last ...

I saw a little blurb in a newspaper the other day that did two things for me. It got me to firmly clasping my chin with my thumb and forefinger and thinking aloud, “Hmm.” And at the same time it gave ...

Cleaning behavior is found in all tropical reef communities. The cleaner wrasse, Labroides dimidiatus, is one of the many organisms that display this behavior. The cleaning stations, which were ...

Nature is rife with charlatans. Hundreds of animals have evolved to look like other species in order to fool predators into thinking they’re more of a threat, or to sneak up on unsuspecting prey. In ...