For a good period of the day, a cleaning station is a manta ray’s entire world! The natural world is full of parasites. Even the parasites have parasites, and the larger you are the more space and micro-habitats you provide for these tiny creatures to live on and in. On land larger animals such as birds and mammals often cope with this problem by grooming and cleaning themselves and other members of their social group, using teeth, hands, beaks and claws to rid themselves of these irritating parasites. But fish like mobula and manta rays do not have hands or beaks, so they have found an animal group to do the job for them. These animals are called cleaners, comprising mostly small reef fishes, although many shrimp species have evolved to become specialised cleaners as well. The cleaners are all small from necessity. Their size enables them to survive on and pick off the individual parasites that cover their clients, even venturing right inside the bodies of their hosts to reach areas that would be inaccessible to a larger cleaner. But their small size makes the cleaners less mobile, so instead of travelling around in search of clients to clean, their clients come to them. The cleaners set up shop at specific locations, usually a prominent reef outcrop or a coral bommie, and a whole host of client species make the trip each day to visit these ‘cleaning stations’. Both manta ray species and the shortfin pygmy devil ray have been recorded frequenting cleaning stations, and it is likely further investigation will also reveal some of the other mobula species utilising these cleaning stations. Shot on @insta360 (by @ocean_ell) #MantaRay #Manta #ReefManta #MobulaAlfredi #Mobula #CleaningStation #ScubaDive #Diving #Scuba #360 #Insta360 #MarineConservation #MantaTrust