Ellen comes clean about the bluestreak cleaner wrasse. We discuss trust, cheating, fish patriarchy, manipulation, deception, game theory, the prisoner's dilemma, marketing, the mirror test, the horrors of self-awareness, and so much more. Christian drinks a Capri-Sun. Works Cited:“Testing the Low-density Hypothesis for Reversed Sex Change in Polygynous Fish: Experiments in Labroides dimidiatus” - Tetsuo Kuwamura et al., Scientific Reports, March 2014“Punishment and partner switching cause cooperative behavior in a cleaning mutualism” - Redouan Bshary & Alexandra Grutter, Biology Letters, July 2005“Power and temptation cause shifts between exploitation and cooperation in a cleaner wrasse mutualism” - Simon Gingins et al., Proc. Biol. Sci., June 2013“Male cleaner wrasses adjust punishment of female partners according to the stakes” by Nichola J Raihani et al., Proc. Biol. Sci., June 2011“Cleaner fish are sensitive to what their partners can and cannot see” - Katherine McAuliffe et al., Communications Biology, Sep 2021“Biting cleaner fish use altruism to deceive image-scoring client reef fish” by Redouan Bshary et al., Proc. Biol. Sci., Feb 2002“If a fish can pass the mark test, what are the implications for consciousness and selfawareness testing in animals?” - Masanori Kohda et al., PLOS Biol, Feb 2019“Further evidence for the capacity of mirror self-recognition in cleaner fish and the significance of ecologically relevant marks” - Masanori Kohda et al., PLOS Biol., Feb 2022“Cleaner fish recognize self in a mirror via self-face recognition like humans” - Masanori Kohda et al., Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Feb 2023“Cleaner fish with mirror self-recognition capacity precisely realize their body size based on their mental image” - Taiga Kobayashi et al., Scientific Reports, Sep 2024“The false cleanerfish relies on aggressive mimicry to bite fish fins when benthic foods are scarce in their local habitat” - Misaki Fujisawa et al., Scientific Reports, May 2020Links:For more information about us & our podcast, head over to our website!Follow Just the Zoo of Us on BlueSky, Facebook, Instagram & Discord!Follow Ellen on BlueSky!

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