Wrasse

From Freepedia

Wrasses

Image:Crenilabrus tinca(01).jpg
Painted Wrasse (Crenilabrus tinca)

Scientific classification

Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Class:	Actinopterygii
Order:	Perciformes
Suborder:	Labroidei
Family:	Labridae

Genera

(60 genera)

The wrasses are a family (family Labridae) of reef safe marine fish, many of which are brightly-colored and popular for aquaria. The family is large and diverse, with about 500 species in 60 genera.

Wrasses have protractile mouths, usually with separate jaw teeth that jut outwards. The dorsal fin has 8-21 spines and 6-21 soft rays, usually running most of the length of the back.

Wrasses are widely known for their role as quasi-symbiotic fish "dentists", similar to the actions of the Egyptian plovers and the cleaner shrimp: other fish will congregate at wrasse cleaning stations, typically at a fixed time of day, and wait for wrasse to swim into their open mouths and feed on fragments of decaying food lodged between the larger fish's teeth, thus providing the larger fish with much-needed dentistry. The wrasse also feed on dead tissue from wounds. Remarkably, wrasse cleaning stations tend to be free of interspecies conflict.

Other species of wrasse, rather than having fixed cleaning stations, specialize in "making house calls" — that is, their "clientele" are those fish who are too territorial or shy to go to a cleaning station.