Pacific cleaner shrimp or White Banded cleaner shrimp lives in many coral reefs at the Similan, Koh Bon, Koh Tachi and Richelieu rock, cleaner shrimp congregate at cleaning stations. A pair of shrimp, in the wild, will set up a 'cleaning station', where several fish who need cleaning visit it. As a fish, who intends to have a good cleaning, approaches the cleaning station, the cleaner shrimp, crawls on the body of the fish and cleans it off debris and parasites. The shrimp cleans the inside of the mouth and gill cavity of the host fish without the fear of being eaten. The Pacific cleaner shrimp are hermaphrodites in nature, as they are born with male reproductive organs and grow female organs as they age. The Pacific cleaner shrimp feeds on its own kind during the mating season. After reproduction and fertilization of the eggs, the male shrimp feeds on the female. The main predators of the cleaner shrimp are fish like Cat sharks, Lion fish, Trigger fish. |
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