Search results
Results From The WOW.Com Content Network
The sucking disc begins to show when the young fish are about 1 cm (0.4 in) long. When the remora reaches about 3 cm (1.2 in), the disc is fully formed and the remora can then attach to other animals. The remora's lower jaw projects beyond the upper, and the animal lacks a swim bladder. [9] Some remoras associate with specific host species.
The common remora (Remora remora) is a pelagic marine fish [3] belonging to the family Echeneidae. The dorsal fin, which has 22 to 26 soft rays, acts as a suction cup , creating a vacuum [ 4 ] to allow the fish to attach to larger marine animals, such as whales, dolphins, sharks, and sea turtles.
Image Scientific name Common name Distribution Remora albescens (Temminck & Schlegel, 1850): white suckerfish: western Indian Ocean including Réunion and Mauritius, in the eastern Pacific Ocean from San Francisco to Chile (but is rare north of Baja California), and in the western and eastern central Atlantic Ocean from Florida and the Gulf of Mexico to Brazil and St. Paul's Rocks.
Unlike some other remora species, parasitic copepods comprise a negligible part of the diet of the white suckerfish, suggesting it may not have a mutualistic relationship with its host. [6] The white suckerfish responds to a touch on its belly by forcefully erecting its pelvic fins, possibly an adaptation to avoid crushing by its host. [5]
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. [ 11 ] 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 ...
One of the whalesucker's most outstanding traits, shared among the Echeinedae family, is an adhesive disk. The adhesive disk is a round, oval, sucking disk located on the top of a remora's head, with two layers of lamellae that allow for the remora to stick and unstick to the epidermal surfaces of larger fish, mainly cetaceans.
Marine habitats can be broadly divided into pelagic and demersal habitats. Pelagic habitats are the habitats of the open water column, away from the bottom of the ocean. Demersal habitats are the habitats that are near or on the bottom of the ocean. An organism living in a pelagic habitat is said to be a pelagic organism, as in pelagic fish.
Remora are specially adapted to attach themselves to larger fish (or other animals, in this case a sea turtle) that provide locomotion and food.. Commensalism is a long-term biological interaction in which members of one species gain benefits while those of the other species neither benefit nor are harmed. [1]