In March 2016 my beloved and I were in northwest Western Australia, “sailing” on a motorised yacht from Broome to Wyndham.
(with many “tinny” side-trips to islands, tidal creeks, beaches, waterfalls, etc)
We were “exploring” the Kimberley Coast – the world’s greatest tropical coastal “wilderness”.
Around 7am on the fourth day of March, we were just a few kilometres distant from Horizontal Falls – this coastline’s most celebrated “attraction”.
By Grand Canyon standards, visitor numbers were infinitesimal.
However, by “way-out-of-any-town” Kimberley standards, we were in severely tourist-infested waters.
Accordingly, some local sharks have learned that a boat may provide a “free feed”; we were far from the first tourists to observe a very relaxed shark, so “amazingly close” to “their” boat.
To my knowledge, “our” boat did not feed the shark.
Nonetheless, the image immediately above does show a mutually beneficial relationship between a “client” (the shark) and some “service providers”..
…to see it, zoom in on/enlarge the head of the shark.
You should now be able to see two little fish atop its head, and another – under no threat, and just as relaxed as is the shark – just in front of its mouth.
They are cleaner wrasses – “service providers” who enjoy a “free feed”, courtesy of their non-threatening “client” who is glad to be rid of dead skin tissue, parasites and slime.
”Service providers” and their “clients” actively seek each other out; click here to discover more about the so-called “doctors of the sea”.
I am pretty sure that it is the same individual in both of my photos and that s/he is a sicklefin lemon shark, Negaprion acutidens.
Click this to learn more.
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