Jennifer Viegas
Source: Discovery News
March 8, 2010

The animated film Shark Tale from a few years ago featured a "car wash" for dirty marine dwellers. Now a new study in the journal Marine & Freshwater Research documents something very similar: fish cleaning stations for sharks and manta rays.

"The objective of the study was to document the occurrence and frequency of visits by manta rays and sharks to cleaning stations in the northern Great Barrier Reef and at Osprey Reef in the Coral Sea," Michael Kingsford, a James Cook University professor in the School of Marine and Tropical Biology, said.

"The manta rays would cease all movement of their fins while in the cleaning stations," added Kingsford, who is also at the ARC Center of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies. "Their gills were often flared and mouths open, but never wide enough to suggest feeding. Several cleaner fish would then migrate upwards towards the animal and begin cleaning."

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