Ellen comes clean about the bluestreak cleaner wrasse. We discuss trust, cheating, fish patriarchy, manipulation, deception, game theory, the prisoner's dilemma, marketing, the mirror test, the horrors of self-awareness, and so much more. Christian drinks a Capri-Sun. 

Works Cited:

1. “Testing the Low-density Hypothesis for Reversed Sex Change in Polygynous Fish: Experiments in Labroides dimidiatus” - Tetsuo Kuwamura et al., Scientific Reports, March 2014
2. “Punishment and partner switching cause cooperative behavior in a cleaning mutualism” - Redouan Bshary & Alexandra Grutter, Biology Letters, July 2005
3. “Power and temptation cause shifts between exploitation and cooperation in a cleaner wrasse mutualism” - Simon Gingins et al., Proc. Biol. Sci., June 2013
4. “Male cleaner wrasses adjust punishment of female partners according to the stakes” by Nichola J Raihani et al., Proc. Biol. Sci., June 2011
5. “Cleaner fish are sensitive to what their partners can and cannot see” - Katherine McAuliffe et al., Communications Biology, Sep 2021
6. “Biting cleaner fish use altruism to deceive image-scoring client reef fish” by Redouan Bshary et al., Proc. Biol. Sci., Feb 2002
7. “If a fish can pass the mark test, what are the implications for consciousness and selfawareness testing in animals?” - Masanori Kohda et al., PLOS Biol, Feb 2019
8. “Further evidence for the capacity of mirror self-recognition in cleaner fish and the significance of ecologically relevant marks” - Masanori Kohda et al., PLOS Biol., Feb 2022
9. “Cleaner fish recognize self in a mirror via self-face recognition like humans” - Masanori Kohda et al., Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Feb 2023
10. “Cleaner fish with mirror self-recognition capacity precisely realize their body size based on their mental image” - Taiga Kobayashi et al., Scientific Reports, Sep 2024
11. “The false cleanerfish relies on aggressive mimicry to bite fish fins when benthic foods are scarce in their local habitat” - Misaki Fujisawa et al., Scientific Reports, May 2020

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