Suckerfish discovered diving into unwelcome place of manta rays

Added: 2026-05-17

[00:00:00]I would say the two big takeaways from this study is one fish and animals can be really weird, but two that we should really start to think about these relationships as this moving spectrum.

[00:00:15]The relationship between remoras and [music] large organisms in the ocean is pretty well studied and understood. In the past that relationship has really thought to be mutualistic or commensalistic where both organisms benefit or one and benefits and the other is sort of unaffected by that relationship. But this one where you have this sort of intrusive behavior that could be causing physical damage to the host itself is sort of a very clear showing that this could be parasitic. So rather than define these relationships as these stringent boxes, this shows that they can exist sort of exist on that spectrum and that uh they can change between them throughout their associations.