Oriental Sweetlips

Photo: Alexandra Hoschke · CC BY-NC

Oriental sweetlips aggregate in dense stationary schools beneath overhangs and around coral bommies during the day, disbanding at night to hunt benthic invertebrates including worms, small crustaceans, and molluscs. Their cleaning station associations with cleaner wrasse and juvenile neon gobies are frequently observed, with whole schools queuing to have parasites removed. As mid-trophic predators they link benthic invertebrate production to the larger reef predator community.