Bluestriped Fangblenny (Indonesia) Richard Zerpe Photo
The Conniving Wiles
of the Bluestriped Fangblenny
“The bluestriped fangblenny is a color-shifting fish that
lives in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. Fangblennies hang out around so-called
cleaner fish; the latter make their living eating parasites and other types of
gunk that build up on the scales of larger fish. The relationship between cleaners
and their ‘clients’ is mutually beneficial: the smaller fish get a meal; the
larger get rid of a nuisance. Young fangblennies assume the coloration of a
cleaner fish; then, once a client draws near, the fangblennies remove not gunk,
but a chunk of the fish’s flesh. As Martin Stevens, an ecologist at the
University of Exeter and the author of Cheats and Deceits (2016) points
out, ‘Fangblennies are not only detrimental to the fish they attack, but also
to the real cleaner fish.’ Client fish naturally grow wary once they’ve been
bitten . . . [Fangblennies may be compared to] ‘gangsters running a racket.’”
Elizabeth Kolbert, “Fooled Again” (on strategies of
deception in the animal world), in The New Yorker, Apr. 3, 2023, p. 58.
Once fangblennied, twice wary. Great idea for a children’s
book: The Bluestriped Fangblenny Meets the Blue-Footed Booby
[excerpted from the book, Bobby Goosey’s Compendium of
Fascinating Facts]
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