Brought to you by: Emilynne
When
toxic seaweed (green at right) gets too close to a type of coral
(yellow structure), this fish, a broad-barred goby (Gobiodon histrio),
responds to a distress signal sent by the coral and nibbles the seaweed
away.
Credit: Danielle Dixson
6 comments:
This is an amazing mechanism. The coral is smart enough to release a chemical that would attract a predator of a predator to eat it. The gobie is a helper to the coral and would eat the coral's predator. It is almost like a whistle that calls over a bodyguard. The fish is smart and would go help a coral "friend".
Sophia said,
I think that this is a amazing that to learn and read about. It is sad that all these animals are in danger because of humans. I am now (December 19 9:00pm)in Venice, Italy and the lagoon and canals are DISGUSTING. From now on I am going to make an effort to clean and take care of the ocean.
This is pretty cool. These gobies are doing so much. Not only defending the reef, defending themselves. The cycle repeats, as coral reefs help fish. Gobies are kind of helping themselves twice, along with getting a snack. What really surprises me is that some fish left because they sensed danger when the coral sent the "distress signal". I do not get what is so harmful about a tasty snack. This was kind of a confusing article and I would love to know more.
I think that it is really sad how coral is dying because of poisonous seaweed. But the article did also say that pollution was a minor problem in the reason seaweed is dying. For crying out loud, why do people have to litter! Can't they throw stuff away in the trash can? And some of you think that I might be exaggerating about this, but the situation for the coral is bad already and littering won't help.
Now, about the seaweed, I didn't know that it could be so dangerous to coral! I am glad the gobies come to the corals rescue once it releases the chemical.
This was really interesting because the gobies that ate the poisonous seaweed not only protected the coral from harm, but also protected themselves. It was also cool to know that there was a poisonous mucus on the goby's skin and the mucus gets even more poisonous as the goby eats the poisonous seaweed. I wonder if the fish that left the "distress signal" will get poisoned by the seaweed that is harming the coral, because why run away if there is a snack nearby and it could feed the fish and save the fish's habitat? I would love to learn more about this fascinating article!
It's cool that the fish react to the coral's distress signal, so the fish can save the day by eating the seaweed. It's like Spongebob, where he has a walkie talkie stuck in his head and a cowboy hat to cover the antenna, and Patrick is in Spongebob's house giving him step-by-step instructions.
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