FISHERY BULLETIN: VOL. 69. NO. 3 



9. Cleaning effectively reduces the number of 

 ectoparasites that infest the external body sur- 

 faces of fishes that interact with the cleaners. 



10. At any given time, many individuals of 

 the more frequently cleaned species are in need 

 of cleaning. Nevertheless, in activity involving 

 the seiiorita, infested fishes do not ordinarily 

 attempt to initiate cleaning but instead wait for 

 cleaning to be initiated by the cleaner. Because 

 the vast majority of sefioritas are not cleaners, 

 or at least are not currently predisposed to clean, 

 i-andom efforts to solicit cleaning from sefioritas 

 in the population at large would not be adaptive. 



11. When initiating its cleaning activity, a 

 given individual seiiorita tends to approach and 

 clean members of only a single species of fish. 



12. Because the vast majority of sefioritas are 

 not currently predisposed to clean and because 

 there are no well-defined cleaning stations, the 

 unnatural-appearing posture assumed by a fish 

 approached by a cleaner is an important cue in 

 advertising the location of available cleaning to 

 other fish in need of this service. 



13. Fishes being cleaned probably experience 

 some degree of stress. The color changes ex- 

 hibited by some fishes when being cleaned are 

 essentially manifestations of this stress; sec- 

 ondarily, they may have assumed a signal-func- 

 tion in certain cleaning interactions. 



14. While intimately associated with the fishes 

 they clean, sefioritas frequently become infested 

 themselves by the same parasites they are at- 

 tempting to remove from these other fishes. 



15. Cleaning activity is sharply curtailed when 

 visibility is reduced by turbid water or when 

 there is strong water movement, such as a heavy 

 surge. 



16. Cleaning activity among these fishes is a 

 diurnal phenomenon. There is no evidence that 

 it continues after dark. 



17. Any so-called "immunity" from predation 

 that a cleaner may enjoy probably relates (1) to 

 an ability to recognize predators that are not in- 

 tent on feeding and to limit cleaning to such indi- 

 viduals, and (2) to the fact that behavior exhib- 

 ited by a cleaner servicing a predator is so unlike 

 that of pi-ey that the predator does not regard the 

 cleaner as food. However, their role as cleaners 

 probably does not afford these fish any security 



from being eaten during noncleaning situations. 



18. Cleaners are widespread among small- 

 mouthed marine fishes that characteristically 

 pick tiny organisms from a substrate. This mode 

 of feeding, especially when combined with the 

 capacity to pick tiny prey that are adrift in mid- 

 water, preadapts fishes to the cleaning habit. 



19. There is no basis for the contention that 

 many of the good fishing grounds in southern 

 California are such because fishes have congre- 

 gated to be cleaned by resident cleaners. 



20. Feeding behavior varies significantly 

 among individuals of at least some species. Thus 

 the habits of an individual can be more limited 

 than those descriptive of its species or even its 

 own population. 



ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 



Lloyd D. Richards assisted me in collecting 

 the data for this study. I thank Roger F. Cressey 

 and Thomas Bowman, U.S. National Museum, 

 who identified the parasitic copepods and iso- 

 pods, respectively, around which much of this 

 study is centered. I thank, too, Carl L. Hubbs 

 and Richard H. Rosenblatt, Scripps Institution 

 of Oceanography, and John R. Hunter, U.S. Na- 

 tional Marine Fisheries Service, for helpful com- 

 ments on a draft of the manuscript. 



REFERENCES 



Clarke, T. A. 



1970. Territorial behavior and population dynam- 

 ics of a pomacentrid fish, the garibaldi, Hypnypops 

 ruhicunda. Ecol. Monogr. 40: 189-212. 

 Clarke, T. A., A. 0. Flechsig, and R. W. Grigg. 



1967. Ecological studies during Project Sealab II. 

 Science (Wash., D.C.) 157: 1381-1389. 

 Cressey, R. F. 



1969a. Caligus liobsoni, a new species of parasitic 

 copepod from California. J. Parasitol. 55 : 431- 

 434. 



1969b. Five new parasitic copepods from California 

 inshore fish. Proc. Biol. Soc. Wash. 82: 409-427. 



1970. Hatschekia pacified new species (Copepoda: 

 caligoida) a parasite of the sand bass, Paralebrax 



522 



