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Behavior

Cocos Island lies 340 miles off the pacific coast of Costa Rica.
The Island is a way station for various pelagic travelers, like the scalloped hammerhead, silky, galapagos, blacktip, and tiger sharks. Sharks gather around the volcanic marinescape for different reasons, yet one common reason for all is the abundance of cleaning stations.

King angelfish (Holacanthus passer) and barberfish (Johnrandallia nigrirostris) are the two major species to form cleaning stations for sharks. Bright yellow juvenile Mexican Hogfish (Bodianus diplotaenia) clean different reef fish species.
Adult females of the species take part in the cleaning effort of HammerHead sharks around other species' cleaning stations.
All cleaners in Cocos are facultative, and do not rely solely on specialized cleaning behavior for nutritious food.

© Shmulik Bloom Photography

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