FISHERY BULLETIN: VOL. 72, NO. 4 



bodies of other fishes at well-defined cleaning sta- 

 tions (Figure 33). Usually two or several of these 

 cleaners are active at each station. It is a diurnal 

 species that shelters in reef crevices at night (Hob- 

 son, 1972). 



This is the major cleaner fish on Hawaiian reefs, 

 and its habits are well known (e.g. Randall, 1958; 

 Youngbluth, 1968; Losey, 1971; Hobson, 1971). 

 Because the activity of this species has been 

 extensively documented, it was only incidentally 

 observed during the present study. 



CONCLUSION. — Lahroides phthirophagus 

 cleans ectoparasites from the bodies of other fishes 

 during the day. 



Thalassotna duperrey (Quoy and Gaimard) — 

 hinalea lauwili 



This is probably the most ubiquitous fish on 

 Kona reefs (Figure 33): it is numerous every- 

 where, from the surge-swept reef tops to the outer 

 drop-off on both coral-rich and exposed basalt sub- 

 strata. In the daytime fish counts along transect 

 lines, T. duperrey ranked among the five most 

 numerous species in all the sampled habitats. An 



opportunist, it is consistently the first fish to ap- 

 pear when a sea urchin has been crushed, or when 

 a rock has been overturned and vulnerable or- 

 ganisms exposed. Sometimes it follows close to the 

 feeding jaws of scarids to snap up prey uncovered 

 when these herbivores disturb the substratum. 

 This wrasse is adapted to a wide range of habits: it 

 forages in the water column when plankton are 

 abundant, but mostly picks organisms off a vari- 

 ety of substrata. It is strictly a diurnal species that 

 shelters in reef crevices at night (Hobson, 1972). 

 Many of the juveniles are cleaners and maintain 

 stations at certain prominent coral heads. On one 

 survey 5 m deep along approximately 1 km of the 

 north shore of Honaunau Bay, I found a cleaning 

 station maintained by these fish at every large 

 head of Porites pukoensis that was of a distinctive 

 mustardlike hue and characterized by golf-ball- 

 sized nodules separated by narrow, shallow de- 

 pressions. The general extent of this cleaner's re- 

 lationship to this type of coral was not determined, 

 but I saw cleaning stations nowhere else during 

 the survey. Because the juveniles of T. duperrey 

 always discontinued cleaning when a human was 

 near, incidental observations of this activity were 

 rare. And, as noted above in discussing La6roj(ies 



Figure 33. — A wrasse, Thalassoma duperrey, being cleaned by another wrasse, Labroides phthirophagus. 



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