Live sharksucker

The live sharksucker or slender sharksucker (Echeneis naucrates) is a species of marine fish in the family Echeneidae, the remoras.

Distribution

The species is considered circumtropical, as it occurs in all tropical and warm temperate waters around the world except for the eastern Pacific. The species can be found close to the coast, as well as offshore at a maximum depth of 50 m (160 ft).

Sharksuckers are known to temporarily attach themselves to various objects or hosts by using their modified dorsal fins. Hosts include sharks, rays, large bony fishes, sea turtles, whales, dolphins, ships, and even scuba divers.

Behaviour

The remora's diet varies according to its maturity or situation (with host or not).

As a juvenile, it sometimes acts as a cleaner fish on a reef station; its diet consists of small parasitic crustaceans such as copepods, isopods, and ostracods.

When attached to a host, the remora eats parasitic crustaceans, food scraps from its host's feeding activity, and even some small food captured by filtering water through its villiform teeth.

Without a host, the fish stays close to the shore and can aggregate with other individuals; its diet is then composed of free-living crustaceans, squid, and small fish.