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View Full Version : Damselfish in Symbiotic Relationship with Frogfish?



The Publisher
07-30-2009, 02:08 AM
A colleague of mine runs the Mactan Island Public Aquarium (http://www.mactanaquarium.xetaspace.ne) on Mactan Island in Cebu, Philippines. Mactan Island is the same island that the Cebu International Airport resides on.

Anyway, they always have interesting stories about inhabitants, including the one where the eel managed to jump out of the top of its marine environment sometime at night, to be discovered early in the morning covered in dust. They put it in a tank right away, and after a few minutes, it started to move a little bit, and after a short while longer, was apparently back to full strength and even eating again! Who would have thought the poor guy would have survived!

Anyway the are reporting a new behavior observed where in a gang of damselfish see to have penchant for herding new damselfish arrivals towards a "Mr Big", a resident frogfish, who happily snaps it up, while leaving the original damselfish alone, apparently in return for having food herded to it.

I plan on touring the non-profit Mactan Island facility soon, they do a great job of promoting marine ecology awareness amongst people, especially school children.

lottie
07-30-2009, 08:55 PM
Those damselfish are just big bullies :)

No end of travelling for you then? it's such a hard life isn't it??? ;)