Tubelip wrasses live on coral reef stretching from the easterly coast of Africa to far - flung atolls in the South Pacific . They get their name from their gonzo lips , which are conspicuously curled , gain them look like someone glued a PVC pipe onto their face . It ’s these backtalk that permit the wrasse to feed in on their best-loved nutrient — red coral — and scientist have only now detailed how in a new paper in the journalCurrent Biology , revealing a strange depredation chemical mechanism never before described by science . The proficiency essentially involves vanquishing food with a guck - slicked , World ’s bad First Kiss , over and over again .
Coral is an abundant food source on coral reefs , but the stuff is n’t exactly sluttish to eat . coral are made up of multitudes of tiny polyps , and each one — like their jellyfish cousins — has a spiny , vicious bunko . What little material body exists continually excrete a film of mucous secretion . To make thing worse , the hard , aragonite skeleton of precious coral is brittle and piercing . Trying to eat a precious coral is like trying to eat a tricky , ceramic cheese grater that also hates you .
Unsurprisingly , most fish choose for less complicated meal : Of the thousands of mintage of coral reef Pisces the Fishes , onlyabout 130 of themdare to dine on coral . More than half of these coral - feeder are butterflyfish , which nibble and stack at the Rand . Others , likepufferfish , bite on coral like it ’s rock candy , powderise it by the mouthful with powerful , pecker - like teeth . However , the tubelip wrasse has evolved corallivory down to an art , and unlike all other coral connoisseur , there ’s no munching or crunching required .
It all follow down to those mouth , which are the most extremely - particularise tools found in Witwatersrand fish for om - nom - noming on coral . The perpetual ruck is slurred , lucullan , and exsert over the teeth , in stark contrast with their closest relatives , which have thin , retracted lips and protruding teeth . But the lips get even uncanny when you soar in . In their novel bailiwick , researchers used scanning electron microscopy to get detailed images of the outer airfoil of the mug of the southerly tubelip ( Labropsis australis ) , revealing a antecedently unknown and striking feature . The lip are extensively plow in lamellae — thin , tightly stacked ridges or plateful of tissue — giving them a deep well-grooved or flaked show . In biota , lamellae often exist to make a lot of surface area for copious mucus product , and so too it seems for the lamellae - oppressed lips of the tubelip .
The researchers took crossing - discussion section of the fold and find they were packed with mucus - producing goblet cellular phone . The resulting goop coating on the Pisces the Fishes ’s lips is key to how it feeds . When one of these affectionate eaters forcefully smooches a coral , the sassing slobber belike has a dual social occasion : The too big for one’s breeches barrier makes much of the polypus ’s aggravated stinging fruitless , and it helps make a sucking - producing stamp on the coral ’s own lube exterior .
Video footage of the tubelip wrasse placing a few stiff unity on coral present it soak up up bits of the precious coral ’s yummy mucus and tissue . The researchers remark that the fish like to target damaged , mucus - dump sphere of coral — a hint that they may in the first place live on coral goop rather than the polyps themselves . Yes , this nasty petty Nemo might have a diet made up almost entirely of coral boogers , made potential by its own back talk bugbear .
Science is just now getting acquainted with the tubelip wrasse ’s gross , uncomfortably tender feeding drug abuse , play up how much we still do n’t understand about coral Rand — and how much we put up to drop off in the wake ofwidespread coral bleachinganddeath . It ’s no secret that precious coral provides decisive habitat for Witwatersrand animals . But plenty of creature have even more intimate relationships with coral , like the tubelip . Many butterflyfish are ‘ obligate corallivores ’ , meaning that they corrode only coral , and often only a select few species . The harlequin filefish ( Oxymonacanthus longirostris ) , prune at Acropora precious coral partially toabsorb their scent , helping them chemically commingle in with the reef to avoid predators . If the coral goes , specialised animals like these go with it .
Jake Buehleris a Seattle area science author with an idolization for the Tree of Life ’s weird , wild , and unvalued — be him onTwitteror at hisblog .
AnimalsBiologyCoral reefsEcologyEvolutionScience
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