Runs a cleaning station that morays queue at with their mouths open.
A shrimp to about 6 cm, translucent amber to scarlet with a broad white stripe running the length of the back, bordered by two red bands, and with long white antennae. It is often found in small groups of two to four at one station, and the white dorsal stripe is a signal — a mark that reef fish recognise and approach rather than eat.
The cleaning is genuine and mutual: the shrimp takes ectoparasites, mucus and damaged tissue from a client fish, and gets a meal. Morays are the striking clients, holding station with the mouth open while shrimps work inside it and across the gills. Stations here are often on debris rather than reef — a tyre, a pipe, a wreck of a fish trap. All individuals are simultaneous hermaphrodites and pairs alternate roles, which is why they are almost always found in twos. Recorded from the shallows to about 40 m. A diver who holds a hand still at a station will usually be cleaned, and the shrimps will start on a camera port instead if it is closer.
Ratings are per location: 1 means found on most dives that look for it, 5 means a handful of records. Where enough dives have been logged the figure is calculated from them; otherwise it is an editorial estimate, and says so. We publish habitat and destination, not the dive site.