Sharks Can Help Large Ocean Fishes Scratch Itches: Aussie Study

SYDNEY, Oct. 20 (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 20th Oct, 2022 ) --:Sharks are the preferred scraping surface for large pelagic fishes, with a positive impact on teleost fitness by reducing parasite loads, according to a study published Wednesday in the journal PLOS One.

By analyzing video records of over 100,000 individuals across the Pacific, Indian and Atlantic Oceans, Christopher D H Thompson and Jessica Meeuwig from the University of Western Australia found that big fishes living in the open ocean, like tunas, prefer to scrape on sharks, rather than on other fish species.

"Tunas were quite orderly, lining up behind the shark and taking turns to brush against the tail. Rainbow runners were unruly, forming a school around the back half of the shark and darting out in turns to bump against its body," the researchers said, when detailing different scraping behaviors between various fish species.