Micro-habitats and Associations
a) Micro-habitat and Association
Stenopus hispidus is most frequently located in shaded coral crevices or caves. These caves occupied by S. hispidus are usually frequented by a large variety of reef fishes, particularly morays, tangs, grunts and groupers.
S. hispidus is usually seen on the ceiling near the crevices entrance where its antennae, if needed, could be displayed in the sunlight. Irregularly they are found in large holes or undercut mats of rhizomes of the turtle grass. Commonly they occupy discarded man-made objects such as tires from car, buckets and habitat forming objects.
b) Associations
As previously mentioned, coral shrimp live in crevices on the reef and share their habitat with a variety of fish reef. They evolved a mutualism relationship with some of the reef fishes including moray eel, parrot fish and groupers. Both organisms benefits from this association.
The fish get cleaned as the fish remove dead tissues, but also ectoparasites. The coral shrimp acquire food through this cleaning behaviour. For more details, have a look under the behaviour section, and look at cleaning behaviour.
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