Turtle riders: remoras on marine turtles in Southwest Atlantic

Abstract

An overview is presented for a poorly documented relationship between reef vertebrates in Southwest Atlantic: remoras (Echeneidae) associated with marine turtles. Two remora species (Echeneis naucrates and Remora remora) and four turtle species (Caretta caretta, Chelonia mydas, Eretmochelys imbricata, and Dermochelys coriacea) are here recorded in symbiotic associations in the SW Atlantic. Echeneis naucrates was recorded both on the coast and on oceanic islands, whereas R. remora was recorded only at oceanic islands and in the open sea. The remora-turtle association is usually regarded as an instance of phoresis (hitchhiking), albeit feeding by the fish is also involved in this symbiosis type. This association seems to be rare in SW Atlantic.Uma visão geral é apresentada sobre uma relação pouco documentada entre vertebrados recifais no Atlântico Sul Ocidental: rêmoras (Echeneidae) associadas a tartarugas marinhas. Duas espécies de rêmora ou pegador (Echeneis naucrates e Remora remora) e quatro de tartarugas (Caretta caretta, Chelonia mydas, Eretmochelys imbricata e Dermochelys coriacea) são aqui registradas em associações simbiônticas para o Atlântico Sul Ocidental. Echeneis naucrates foi registrada tanto na costa como em ilhas oceânicas, ao passo que R. remora foi registrada somente em ilhas oceânicas e região pelágica. A associação entre rêmoras e tartarugas é habitualmente considerada como forese, embora forrageamento, por parte das rêmoras, também esteja envolvido neste tipo de simbiose. Esta associação parece ser rara no Atlântico Sul Ocidental.

Remora attachment is enhanced by spinule friction

“…It has been suggested that attaching to mobile hosts benefits the remoras by reducing metabolic demands for swimming (Muir and Buckley, 1967), offering opportunistic feeding (Strasburg, 1962) or increasing the chance of finding mates (Silva and Sazima, 2003). Remoras have been known to strongly attach to sharks (Ritter, 2002;Ritter and Brunnschweiler, 2003), rays (Williams et al, 2003), other pelagic fish (Williams et al, 2003), sea turtles (Sazima and Grossman, 2006), dolphins (Weihs et al, 2007), divers (Silva and Sazima, 2003), buoys (Cressey and Lachner, 1970), ship hulls (Cressey and Lachner, 1970) and concrete (Strasburg, 1962). This variety of hosts moves at many different speeds and have body surfaces that span a broad spectrum of geometries and topologies (Stote et al, 2014).…”

Feeding and social behavior of the piabanha, Brycon devillei (Castelnau, 1855) (Characidae: Bryconinae) in the wild, with a note on following behavior

“…Moreover, these studies have answered central issues concerning the dynamics of schools (Fréon et al, 1992), as well as social interactions with other groups of vertebrates (e.g. turtles, dolphins and primates) and invertebrates (Sabino & Sazima, 1999;Sazima et al, 2004;Sazima & Grossman, 2006;. However, Azevedo et al (2010) reported that, despite the efforts of Brazilian researchers to increase knowledge regarding the behavior of Neotropical freshwater fish, the number of published studies is still limited, and insufficient to answer basic questions (i.e.…”

Species records, mistaken identifications, and their further use: the case of the diskfish Echeneis naucrates on a spinner dolphin

“…Echeneidae contains eight recognized species (O'Toole, 2002), of which Echeneis naucrates is the most versatile (O'Toole, 2002;Sazima & Grossman, 2006) fastening to a wide variety of hosts, including conspecifics (Brunschweiller & Sazima, 2006) and cetaceans (Fertl & Landry, 1999a;Noke, 2004;Santos & Sazima, 2005).…”

“…This latter factor could have led the ichthyologist and the authors of the record to mistake the photographed individual for E. naucrates, a species with a tricolor pattern (e.g. Robins & Ray, 1986;Humann, 1996;Williams et al, 2004;Noke, 2004;Froese & Pauly, 2006;Sazima & Grossman, 2006). However, in some large individuals of this latter species the dark lateral stripe tends to fade off (e.g.…”

“…The attachment of E. naucrates on Stenella longirostris seems remote, given the inshore habits of this remora species (Randall, 1996;Sazima & Grossman, 2006) and the pelagic habitat of the spinner dolphin (Norris et al, 1994;Perrin, 2002). Presently E. naucrates is reported on two non-spinning cetacean species only, the bottlenose dolphin Tursiops truncatus on the Atlantic coast of United States (Fertl & Landry, 1999a, b;Noke, 2004) and the tucuxi dolphin (Sotalia guianensis) on the southern coast of Brazil (Santos & Sazima, 2005), all records in coastal waters.…”