By Susan Milius
From Boise, Idaho, at a meeting of the Animal Behavior Society
The little helpers known as cleaner fish, which nibble parasites off larger reef fish, actually prefer to nibble their clients.
Earlier experiments had already caught cleaner fish apparently cheating, taking nips of flesh and skin-covering mucus from their customers, says Alexandra Grutter of the University of Queensland in Brisbane, Australia. However, she says, it wasn’t clear whether the cleaner fish actually had a taste for their clients or were just hungry enough to nip the customer when the search for parasites proved arduous.