Remoras

[Orleander]

Remora's attach themselves to turtles and other sea animals. Have they ever attached themselves to scuba divers? can they attach to a human?

 

[cosmictraveler]

They could but they find humans rather hard to get "attached" to for many reasons.

 

[Naturelles]

They also attach to sharks right?

And they probably don't attach to humans as we're a new animal in their environment maybe?

 

[CutsieMarie89]

Humans don't spend much time in the ocean, so why would they waste their time trying to develop a symbiotic relationship? I'm sure they could if they wanted to though.

 

[draqon]

remoras will not benefit much from attaching themselves to humans as a good transport nor for food collection since humans mainly swim a short period of time and usaully cover little volume of water when swimming so they are bad at collecting food on them as well...commensalism exhibited by remoras works only when their host gives them benefit in attaching.

Of course that does not mean there will not be isolated incidents, or people purposely trying to have them attached on themselves to look cool with the girls.

 

[draqon]

By the way this makes me think...remoras actually eat parasites on their hosts when they attach to their hosts using vacuum pipes...it is harmless, but whats more it might be quite beneficial...imagine using remoras to get rid of parasites on skin! Health idea people.

An account of one of the divers:

this happened to me on roatan, honduras, a few years ago… i dropped off the back of the boat with just mask, fins, and snorkel to survey a patch reef… the drop off point was in a channel a long swim from the reef, but it was murky deep water… this sort of blind swim creeps me the fuck out, especially in back reef, lagoon systems where bull sharks are common…

anyway, i’m kicking along on the surface when i feel something brush the underside of my legs (i was not wearing a wetsuit)… i immediately freaked-out, swallowing a huge gulp of seawater… when i turned around i saw this big remora following below me…

it was cool to watch for a while, but then i got the sneaky suspicion that maybe his “host” was somewhere out of sight… i started swimming back to the boat and sure enough one of the boat-hands yelled to keep an eye open for a shark he had spotted…

cool fish, but they still give me the chills…

 

[Orleander]

So 'scuba skin' isn't like any other animals. Would they be confused by its texture?

 

[Randwolf]

can they attach to a human?

Probably not in any sucky position considered beneficial to said human...

Anyway, I would think that they could attach, but probably wouldn't because of the relatively short amount of time humans spend in water. This lack of opportunity, coupled with mostly an absence of bloody food stuff about, probably discourages such behavior - I think remoras hitch rides to find food, right?

 

[Orleander]

they don't hitch a ride for a ride? Save energy?