Evidence of corallivory in the urchin clingfish Diademichthys lineatus

Corallivory on coral reefs (predation on coral mucus, tissue and skeleton) influences factors ranging from habitat complexity and diversity to coral resilience and the vulnerability of associated species to disturbance (Cole et al. 2008; Rice et al. 2019). [...]variation between adult males and females has been observed regarding the relative contribution of these items to the diet. Each individual was located on a separate patch reef, located at least 20 m from other patch reefs or natural reefs, and observed between 0800 and 1500 h. In each observation, conducted on SCUBA, the individual was seen striking repeatedly at the coral colony over a period of several minutes (Fig. 1), with no apparent effect of the observer’s presence on behaviour.