March 8, 2011
Today’s "Cool Photo of the Week" was taken at the opening of the Grand Aquarium in Hong Kong’s Ocean Park. Although it looks as though these tiny fish are about to become lunch for the humongous Grey Nurse Shark swimming behind them, these fish actually work as a team.
The small fish are pilot fish, and they eat fish lice, little crabs, and blood sucking worms that live on the skin of the shark. The pilot fish suck on the shark’s skin and keep it clean, and in exchange, the shark doesn’t eat them. This is also a smart way for the pilot fish to avoid other predators, because most of their enemies are careful to stay away from sharks.
There have even been reports of smaller pilot fish swimming into a shark’s mouth a cleaning away bits of food caught between its teeth…..like living dental floss!
Photo courtesy of MSNBC.com’s “Animal Tracks”
Posted by: Seymour Simon
