Underwater video reveals novel behavioural interactions: a case study of a repeated ongoing association between a sharksucker Echeneis naucrates and a yellowtail parrotfish Sparisoma rubripinne

The ecological sciences have historically relied on field stations for long-term observations of specific populations, ecosystems, and even individual animals. Travel reductions due to the COVID-19 pandemic and increasing concerns about the carbon footprint of scientific research, have led to calls for other ways of doing research. Emerging technological trends and the growth of community science have resulted in the increased deployment of livestream cameras set up in ecologically interesting areas all over the world.Methods: One such setup is Coral City Camera, a livestream from a coral reef near Miami, Florida, which attracted a widespread following during the COVID-19 pandemic and spawned a large and diverse community of observers. The associated Facebook group, where videos are shared and discussed has, as of July 16 2023, more than 500 members, and the livestream has been viewed by more than 2.3 million people from all over the world. Using the Coral City Camera livestream and the associated community of observers, we document here a novel ecological interaction: a sharksucker, Echeneis naucrates, repeatedly attached to an individual yellowtail parrotfish, Sparisoma rubripinne, which may have occurred on 94 days within a 283-day time period. If it was indeed the same sharksucker on the same parrotfish, this would be the longest interaction documented between a sharksucker and any host. This observation was only possible due to the nature of this livestreamed underwater video and its associated community of enthusiastic observers, whose observations brought this interaction to the attention of the scientific community. A similar setup could be more widely utilised.