Remora albescens
White Suckerfish
Collection Details
Specimens
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Records
Taxonomic Hierarchy
Actinopterygii (Ray-finned Fishes)
Perciformes (Perciformes, Also Called the Acanthopteri)
Echeneidae (Remoras)
Remora
Remora albescens (White Suckerfish)
Description
This species account was compiled from
FishBase (Froese, R. and D. Pauly. Editors. 2025. FishBase. World Wide Web electronic publication. www.fishbase.org, version 04/2025.)
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Characters
Body shape: elongated. Pale grey to white in color.
Distribution
Worldwide in warm seas. Western Indian Ocean: including Reunion and Mauritius (Ref. 33390). Eastern Pacific: off San Francisco in California, USA to Chile, but rare north of Baja California in Mexico. Western Atlantic: Florida in USA and Gulf of Mexico to Brazil (Ref. 7251). Eastern Central Atlantic: St. Paul's Rocks (Ref. 13121).
Habitat Associations
Marine. pelagic-oceanic.
Biology
Host specific on manta rays, but occasionally attaches to sharks. Often occurs inside gill chamber and mouth of host. Also attaches itself to black marlin, Makaira indica, of the Indo-Pacific Region (Ref. 7251). Rarely free-swimming (Ref. 10791). Used in Chinese medicine (Ref. 12166).
Max length: 30.0 cm SL.
Reproductive mode: dioecism; fertilization: external; nonguarders; parental care: none.
IUCN Red List Status: Least Concern (LC), assessed 2010-07-01. Resilience: Medium (Assuming Fec < 10,000).
References
Breder, C.M. and D.E. Rosen (1966) Modes of reproduction in fishes. T.F.H. Publications, Neptune City, New Jersey. 941 p.
Eschmeyer, W.N., E.S. Herald and H. Hammann (1983) A field guide to Pacific coast fishes of North America. Boston (MA, USA): Houghton Mifflin Company. xii+336 p.
Heemstra, P.C. (1986) Echeneidae. p. 662-664. In M.M. Smith and P.C. Heemstra (eds.) Smiths' sea fishes. Springer-Verlag, Berlin.
Edwards, A. (1990) Fish and fisheries of Saint Helena Island. Centre for Tropical Coastal Management Studies, University of Newcastle upon Tyne, England.
Mundy, B.C. (2005) Checklist of the fishes of the Hawaiian Archipelago. Bishop Mus. Bull. Zool. (6):1-704.
Gray, K.N., J.R. McDowell, B.B. Collette and J.E. Graves (2009) A molecular phylogeny of the remoras and their relatives. Bull. Mar. Sci. 84(2):183-198.
Fricke, R., M. Kulbicki and L. Wantiez (2011) Checklist of the fishes of New Caledonia, and their distribution in the Southwest Pacific Ocean (Pisces). Stuttgarter Beiträge zur Naturkunde A, Neue Serie 4:341-463.
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