Fish Fraud: Cleaners show off before biting clients

Some of the reef fish that make their living by nibbling parasites off other fish may be luring clients into scams by offering free massages.

CLEANER. A wrasse, Labroides dimidiatus, cruises its reef home between sessions of grooming other fish. NOAA

Widespread fish called cleaner wrasses (Labroides dimidiatus) normally graze on the parasites and diseased tissue of other species that stop by for grooming, explains Redouan Bshary of the University of Cambridge in England.