amnhnyc:

🎵Ooh… Who sleeps in a mucus bag under the sea? That’s right kids: It’s the fourspot parrotfish (Scarus zelindae).

During the day, it uses a parrot-like beak to scrape algae from coral reefs in the southwest Atlantic Ocean. But by night, this fish wraps itself up in a cocoon of mucus! In a process that can take up to an hour, the parrotfish secretes mucus from glands near its gills. Scientists think that these mucus sleeping bags mask the scent of the fish, protecting it from predators. It’s also believed that the parrotfish’s mucus shields it from blood-thirsty isopods: marine critters that have been called the “mosquitoes of the sea.”

Photo: RobertoCostaPinto, CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons

#wildlife #ocean #oceanlife #fish #biodiversity #amazinganimals
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