Reef behaviors › Cleaning
The night shift
At night the cleaning gobies sleep, and cleaner shrimps take over, picking parasites from fish that visit them in the dark.
Species involved
Where to see it in the game: After dark, near the cleaner shrimp.
Spinyhead is a free game you play in your browser: you are a spinyhead blenny, a fish about 3 cm long living in a worm hole on a Caribbean coral head. Feed, fight for a better hole, court, raise eggs and dodge predators, while everything around you behaves the way field biologists have seen it behave. Most behaviors in the game come from published field studies; the rest are borrowed from other reefs or extrapolated, and this page says which. There are 82 on these pages, and more in the game’s field notebook waiting to be found.
More cleaning

Posing for the cleanersCleaning

An honest approachCleaning

All doneCleaning

A change of colorCleaning

Into the jawsCleaning

A moray at the stationCleaning

A butterflyfish cleanedCleaning
Other reef behaviors to discover

The worm snaps shutWorms

A nip at the plumeWorms

A new tubeWorms

The fourth eyeFoureye butterflyfish

A young foureyeFoureye butterflyfish

No two alikeFoureye butterflyfish

A rider under the eyeFoureye butterflyfish

Lying lowFoureye butterflyfish

Infected rivalsFoureye butterflyfish

The pair’s greetingCleaning gobies

Tending the nestCleaning gobies

Threat displayCleaning gobies

Seen offCleaning gobies

Mate guardingCleaning gobies

Inspected and ignoredCleaning gobies

A clutch hatchesCleaning gobies

Regular customersCleaning gobies

Small fryCleaning gobies

A single female’s stationCleaning gobies

A new partnerCleaning gobies

The spawningCoral spawning

Storm swellWeather

A copepod swarmPlankton

The swarm breaks upPlankton