So it is the middle of the week and I do hope you are enjoying all the wonderful imitators that can be found on our amazing planet. Since we have talked about a bird and an insect, I think it is time to explore the life of one of our watery friends. You may remember the Sabre-Toothed Blenny from an earlier Wild Fact as this form of mimicry was highlighted in the “Fast Fact” section. Regardless, let’s take a minute to learn a little more about our tiny little fish.
The Sabre-Toothed Blenny can be found hanging out around coral reefs in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. You may be looking at the picture and thinking to yourself that this fish looks unusually familiar. Well, it should since we did a Wild Fact on the fish that it looks like, the Cleaner Wrasse. Remember the Cleaner Wrasse? This is the little fish that helps out bigger fish by plucking the parasites off their body. These cute little fish would perform a little dance so the larger fish would know that it was time for a cleaning.
Well, the Sabre-Toothed Blenny complicates this process for the bigger fish. You see, they look almost identical to the Cleaner Wrasse and they even know how to perform the special dance. The only problem is, the Sabre-Toothed Blenny gets its name from the large teeth in their mouth (relative to their size). Now what in the world do you think the Blenny does with these teeth? That’s right, they use them to take a nice big bite out of the unsuspecting fish that went in for a cleaning. The bite doesn’t kill the fish but I bet it doesn’t feel very good.
As a result, the Sabre-Toothed Blenny will often give the Cleaner Wrasse a bad name. For some reason after it is done sneaking a bite out of the larger fish, this host doesn’t want anything to do with the Cleaner Wrasse. So not only are these Blenny’s hurting the larger fish but they are giving the poor innocent Wrasse a bad reputation. This is almost like identity fraud. How would you feel if someone stole your identity and started writing mean messages to your 1134 Facebook Friends? The nerve of some animals!
So far we have 3 different uses for mimicry. At least the other two really didn’t harm anything else. Before you leave, I have posted a 3 minute video of the Sabre-Toothed Blenny performing its inimitation, flawlessly. Have a great day.
