Real cleaner wrasse or mimic?

[mdreef1]

I bought two cleaner wrasses from the LFS yesterday and while acclimating observed from aggressive side biting between the two. It made me stop to think if perhaps these are mimics. I did some research on the Internet, but I still can’t tell one from the other. Here are two pics of the mouth area on each fish. What do you think?

Wrasse1:


Wrasse2:

 

[mdreef1]

I bought two cleaner wrasses from the LFS yesterday and while acclimating observed from aggressive side biting between the two. It made me stop to think if perhaps these are mimics. I did some research on the Internet, but I still can’t tell one from the other. Here are two pics of the mouth area on each fish. What do you think?

Wrasse1:


Wrasse2:

Closing the loop, the folks at wetwebmedia were able to positively ID these fish as aspidontus taeniatus - the false cleaner wrasse. They look the same, and even do a little dance to lure fish close with the promise of a good cleaning, and then take a bite out of them. I watched this behavior first hand. It was interesting to see, but not something you'd want to have in your tank.

The key difference is in the mouth area. The false cleaner's mouth opens up much larger and has a split lower jaw with one fang set in each half. I haven't see anything written about the split lower jaw, but observed this myself, and you can see it in the pics above.

Hopefully this helps out others.