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Published online 21 June 2006 | Nature | doi:10.1038/news060619-8

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Fussy fish prefer trustworthy cleaners

Sea bream choose cleaners they've already spied hard at work.

It turns out that even for a fish, eavesdropping might help in figuring out who you can trust not to stab you in the back. The sea bream Scolopsis bilineatus apparently spies on cleaner fish Labroides dimidiatus before deciding which of them to employ.

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