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Come sundown, this watermelon-sized Caribbean gem slips into a crevice and, using special glands behind its gills, secretes a bubble of mucus that swells up and over its head like a diving helmet. The pouch spreads towards the fish\u2019s tail and, within 30 minutes or so, the fish is resting inside a surprisingly spacious sac of slime.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n The clammy cocoon \u2013 in which the fish spends the entire night \u2013 has many benefits. It is laced with antibiotics that kill known parrotfish pathogens, and also physically blocks blood-sucking parasites from getting near the fish. In addition, it appears to seal in the sleeper\u2019s body odour, masking it from scent-tracking predators such as moray eels.<\/p>\n And the instant the pod is disturbed or torn, its owner wakes up and high-tails it out of there. It\u2019s like a high-tech tent with a mosquito net and burglar alarm system.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n But the queen parrotfish\u2019s slimy behaviour doesn\u2019t end there. Another gland constantly churns out a second type of mucus that protects the fish\u2019s skin against ultraviolet light \u2013 like slime sunscreen. Most fish have it, but parrotfish can control where it goes. As it flocks to shallow-water Main image \u00a9 Humberto Ramirez\/Getty Images<\/p><\/body><\/html>\n By BBC Wildlife Magazine Published: Thursday, 10 November 2022 at 12:00 am How do parrot fish make a mucus bubble? Come sundown, this watermelon-sized Caribbean gem slips into a crevice and, using special glands behind its gills, secretes a bubble of mucus that swells up and over its head like a diving helmet. The pouch […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":22482,"template":"","categories":[1],"acf":{"readingTimeMinutes":"2"},"uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/44\/2022\/11\/how-and-why-the-queen-parrotfish-creates-a-mucus-bubble-scaled.jpg",2560,1694,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/44\/2022\/11\/how-and-why-the-queen-parrotfish-creates-a-mucus-bubble-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/44\/2022\/11\/how-and-why-the-queen-parrotfish-creates-a-mucus-bubble-300x199.jpg",300,199,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/44\/2022\/11\/how-and-why-the-queen-parrotfish-creates-a-mucus-bubble-768x508.jpg",768,508,true],"large":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/44\/2022\/11\/how-and-why-the-queen-parrotfish-creates-a-mucus-bubble-1024x678.jpg",800,530,true],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/44\/2022\/11\/how-and-why-the-queen-parrotfish-creates-a-mucus-bubble-1536x1016.jpg",1536,1016,true],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/44\/2022\/11\/how-and-why-the-queen-parrotfish-creates-a-mucus-bubble-2048x1355.jpg",2048,1355,true]},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"importmanagerhub@sprylab.com","author_link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcwildlife\/author\/importmanagerhubsprylab-com\/"},"uagb_comment_info":0,"uagb_excerpt":"By BBC Wildlife Magazine Published: Thursday, 10 November 2022 at 12:00 am How do parrot fish make a mucus bubble? Come sundown, this watermelon-sized Caribbean gem slips into a crevice and, using special glands behind its gills, secretes a bubble of mucus that swells up and over its head like a diving helmet. The pouch…","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcwildlife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rss_feed\/22481"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcwildlife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rss_feed"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcwildlife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/rss_feed"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcwildlife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/24"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcwildlife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22482"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcwildlife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22481"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcwildlife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22481"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Why do\u00a0parrot fish make a mucus bubble?<\/h2>\n
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