Thirty-one individuals of seven Perciform and one Tetraodontiform fish species were reported from the Davao Gulf constituting new records for the Philippines: from the Labridae, Bodianus leucosticticus (9 individuals) and Bodianus masudai (3); Nemipteridae, Parascolopsis melanophrys (2); Priacanthidae, Pristigenys meyeri (2); Serranidae, Odontanthias chrysostictus (6), Odontanthias randalli (5) and Liopropoma latifasciatum (3); Monacanthidae, Thamnaconus multilineatus (1). Large range extensions were found for P. melanophrys, O. chrysostictus, O. randalli and T. multilineatus. The individuals of P. melanophrys are the third and fourth ever-reported individuals of this extremely rare dwarf monocle bream. A new maximum SL of 126 mm was reported for O. chrysostictus. We also encountered one individual of the rare wrasse Bodianus rubrisos recently observed at a more northern location. The current observations extend our knowledge of marine fishes in the Philippines and the unusually high marine biodiversity in this region. As all recorded species are considered inhabitants of mesophotic coral ecosystems, these observations also confirm that fishing pressure has increased in these deeper habitats.

The presence of the fish species Iniistius pavo is confirmed in the Sea of Oman. One adult specimen (420 mm total length) was caught from the waters around the City of Muscat, Sea of Oman, giving a new ichthyofaunal record for the area and new maximum length for the species.

This work reports for the first time cleaning activity by fish and shrimps in Santa Luzia, Cape Verde Archipelago and São Tomé Islands. Three new records of facultative cleaner fish species are presented. Facultative cleaners dominated by Labridae were the most observed cleaner fishes in the two studied islands. Multi-specific cleaning stations were prevalent in Santa Luzia, while cleaner shrimps were more observed interacting in the São Tomé Islands.

New Zealand fur seals (Arctocephalus forsteri) forage mostly in open waters at night and spend parts of the day in coastal sheltered sites, where they may play, rest and eliminate wastes. We recorded the purple wrasse (Notolabrus fucicola) feeding on faeces and vomits of these pinnipeds at Fortescue Bay in the Tasman Peninsula, Australia. This behaviour allows the wrasse to get nutrients from open waters that otherwise would not be available. Thus, it is suggested that the fur seals have the role of transferring nutrients from open waters to inshore reefs and provide them as particulate food to fish. This functional role is apparently recorded for only one species of marine mammal so far, the spinner dolphin (Stenella longirostris), in tropical oceanic waters.

Most studies and records of cleaning symbiosis between reef fish originate from shallow waters, ranging about 1–30 m depth. We record herein the wrasse Bodianus pulchellus and the goby Elacatinus phthirophagus cleaning below 60 m depth in the tropical south-western Atlantic. The wrasse was recorded cleaning two large piscivorous clients (a jack and a grouper) and the goby was recorded cleaning a grouper. Cleaning interactions between deep-reef fish and both of these cleaners may be expected at depths even greater than those reported here.

Cleaning interactions among the rainbow wrasse Coris julis and the azorean blue wrasse Centrolabrus caeruleus are presented with photographic registers, as well as the first record of the latter cleaning conspecifics from Azorean shallow rocky reefs.

The parasite community of animals is generally influenced by host physiology, ecology, and phylogeny. Therefore, sympatric and phylogenetically related hosts with similar ecologies should have similar parasite communities. To test this hypothesis we surveyed the endoparasites of 5 closely related cheilinine fishes (Labridae) from the Great Barrier Reef. They were Cheilinus chlorourus, C. trilobatus, C. fasciatus, Epibulus insidiator and Oxycheilinus diagramma. We examined the relationship between parasitological variables (richness, abundance and diversity) and host characteristics (body weight, diet and phylogeny). The 5 fishes had 31 parasite species with 9–18 parasite species per fish species. Cestode larvae (mostly Tetraphyllidea) were the most abundant and prevalent parasites followed by nematodes and digeneans. Parasites, body size and diet of hosts differed between fish species. In general, body weight, diet and host phylogeny each explained some of the variation in richness and composition of parasites among the fishes. The 2 most closely related species, Cheilinus chlorourus and C. trilobatus, had broadly similar parasites but the other fish species differed significantly in all variables. However, there was no all-encompassing pattern. This may be because different lineages of parasites may react differently to ecological variables. We also argue that adult parasites may respond principally to host diet. In contrast, larval parasite composition may respond both to host diet and predator-prey interactions because this is the path by which many parasites complete their life-cycles. Finally, variation in parasite phylogeny and parasite life-cycles among hosts likely increase the complexity of the system making it difficult to find all-encompassing patterns between host characteristics and parasites, particularly when all the species in rich parasite communities are considered.

A nearly complete lower pharyngeal tooth-plate from a large (over 60 cm long) fossil wrasse (Perciformes: Labridae) was recently recovered from the middle to late Eocene La Meseta Formation on Seymour Island, Antarctic Peninsula. This find increases the number of teleosts from the Eocene of Antarctica to five taxa, and further illustrates the diversity of the ichthyofauna in the Eocene Weddellian Sea prior to wide-scale climatic change in the Southern Ocean. The fossil wrasse represents the first occurrence of this family in Antarctica, and is one of the oldest fossils of this family from the Southern Hemisphere. Wrasses are not found in Antarctic waters today, and probably became extinct during the Oligocene due to a combination of climatic change, loss of shallow-water habitat, and changes in the trophic structure of the Wedell Sea.