Read on Twitter
Okay #GobyWeek, as promised, meet the cleaner gobies! Whereas wrasses are the most common cleaner fish of the Indo-Pacific, the absolutely stunning cleaner gobies dominate the Caribbean!
Cleaner gobies, a thread 1/n
Cleaner gobies, a thread 1/n
Cleaner species from the genus Elacatinus have beautiful lateral stripes. Several have independently evolved a blue stripe, which signals to other reef fishes that they're friendly. This blue stripe is also convergent with the blue stripe seen in cleaner wrasses! #GobyWeek
2/n
2/n
Unlike the wrasses, the gobies are real itty bitty. Despite this, they are unafraid to really commit themselves to the job. Superficially they also tend to clean more often in groups! #GobyWeek
3/n
3/n
Another cool fact before I start popping off CT scans is that several species have multiple color morphs that are both genetically and geographically distinct. So really, they should be distinct species. This is not uncommon at all for gobies #GobyWeek
4/n
4/n
If you follow me, you should know that I'll always post a CT scan (if I can). So here's Elacatinus evelynae, the sharknose goby. Little late for #SharkWeek but not for #GobyWeek. I really love this scan because this fish is literally only 2 cm long
#ScanAllFishes #oVertTCN
5/n
#ScanAllFishes #oVertTCN
5/n
The really dedicated cleaner gobies have these comb like teeth (left) whereas their non-cleaning relatives have these assortment of massive canines (right). We hypothesize the teeth are specialized for scraping parasites off their clients #GobyWeek
#ScanAllFishes #oVertTCN
6/n
#ScanAllFishes #oVertTCN
6/n
To make cleaner gobies even cooler is that there is ANOTHER CLADE with a similar comb like teeth from the genus Tigrigobius. It's CONVERGENT EVOLUTION #GobyWeek
7/n
7/n
I'm going to pause and take a moment to do a shameless plug for our paper on the morphology and evolution of cleaner gobies that came out earlier this year! #GobyWeek https://twitter.com/jmhuiee/status/1210625769321332736?s=20
So I don't think I truly did Tigrigobius justice with the last photo. Here is the skull of T. limbaughi, a facultative cleaner. Again, please note the distinct rows of comb like teeth in the lower jaw #GobyWeek
