Weird behaviour: cleaner angel?!

[davidcalgary29]

I acclimated a lovely juvenile c. acanthops in one of my builds, where it joined several other larger fish. Hours later, I noticed that the niger trigger was following the angel and displaying that “please clean me!” orientation…and the angel obliged, picking at some skin. The angel tried that with a few other fish, all of which gave it a nip.

I’ve heard that some juvenile reef fish act as cleaners…but this? Opportunistic parsitism or actual cleaning?

Yes, I know: pics or it didn’t happen.

 

[terraincognita]

I acclimated a lovely juvenile c. acanthops in one of my builds, where it joined several other larger fish. Hours later, I noticed that the niger trigger was following the angel and displaying that “please clean me!” orientation…and the angel obliged, picking at some skin. The angel tried that with a few other fish, all of which gave it a nip.

I’ve heard that some juvenile reef fish act as cleaners…but this? Opportunistic parsitism or actual cleaning?

Yes, I know: pics or it didn’t happen.

In my experience dwarfs angels are just nippy little nip heads.

They nip everything they're not supposed to. All day just nippy nip nip nip.

we should rename them Nipping Angels, instead of dwarf.

 

[davidcalgary29]

That angel pecked politely, though, and the trigger seemed to enjoy it. The angel then went back to pecking at nori.