Bluestriped Fangblenny

The bluestriped fangblenny is a con artist. It has evolved to almost perfectly mimic the cleaner wrasse - same size, same blue and black stripes, same swimming pattern. Fish approach expecting parasite removal. Instead, the fangblenny darts in and bites a chunk of flesh or mucus, then flees before the victim can respond. This is aggressive mimicry: exploiting the trust signals of a legitimate service provider to extract value through deception.

The mimicry is so precise that even experienced divers struggle to distinguish fangblennies from true cleaners. The con works because legitimate cleaner wrasse are common and provide genuine value - victims have been conditioned to trust the visual signals. Fangblennies are always rarer than true cleaners (too many fakes would destroy the trust the con exploits). They also tend to operate at the edges of cleaner wrasse territories, where victims may be less familiar with local service providers.

The business parallel is trademark infringement, counterfeiting, and brand exploitation. Fangblennies demonstrate that wherever legitimate trust signals exist, mimics will evolve to exploit them. The more valuable the trusted brand, the more attractive it becomes to counterfeiters. This creates an evolutionary arms race: cleaner wrasse could evolve more complex signals, but fangblennies would evolve to copy them. The equilibrium maintains enough real cleaners to sustain trust while supporting a population of exploiters. For legitimate businesses, fangblennies are a reminder that brand protection is an ongoing cost, not a one-time achievement.