AnimalsCoral Reef
Cleaner wrasse Fun facts for kids
Labroides dimidiatus
The cleaner wrasse lives on warm coral reefs near Asia and Australia and eats tiny critters and slime off other fish.
- Where it lives
- on warm coral reefs near Asia and Australia
- What it eats
- tiny critters and slime off other fish
- How big it is
- about as long as your finger
Fun facts about the cleaner wrasse
The ones Sammy likes best. She tells them in the game, too.
Big fish like eels open their mouths wide so this little fish can swim right inside to clean, and they never eat it.
It runs a cleaning shop on the reef, and bigger fish line up to get the tiny bugs picked off their bodies.
One of these little fish can clean more than 2,000 visiting fish in just one day.
It does a bouncy up and down dance to tell passing fish that its cleaning shop is open.
It even cleans sharks and manta rays, which swim over to the reef just to get a wash.
It behaves better and cheats less when other fish are watching, as if it cares what they think.
Sometimes it cheats and nibbles a fish's slime instead of the bugs, and the fish may chase it away.
Divers say it sometimes nibbles gently at their hands as if they were fish, and it tickles.
Riddle
Can a friend guess it?
Read the clues to someone, one at a time, without saying the animal. How many clues do they need? Fewer is better, just like in the game.
I live in the warm, shallow sea near Asia and Australia, and I'm about as long as your finger.
I'm busy all day long, and at night I hide in a crack in the reef to sleep.
I do a bouncy up and down dance so passing fish know my shop is open.
Even sharks and manta rays swim over to my reef just so I can pick tiny bugs off them.
Big fish open their mouths wide so I can swim right inside and wash them, and they never eat me.
Sammy might be thinking of a cleaner wrasse.
In Thought Zoo, Sammy picks an animal and you ask her yes-or-no questions to find it. You'll find the cleaner wrasse in the Coral Reef adventure.
Play the Coral ReefComing to iPad, iPhone and Android on 12 January 2027
