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Sporting bright hues of yellow and a prominent black smudge on their caudal tail, the brightly colored juvenile senoritas are advertizing a service. Like many members of the wrasse family, senoritas are cleaner fish known to pick ectoparasites off of other fish species. Just like at the car wash, fish loaded with parasites will line up near a cleaning station patiently waiting their turn to have hitchhikers removed from their bodies. The tiny mouths of a young senorita are filled with an array of protruding teeth making an ideal tool to extract external parasites or even those embedded in the gills of fish.  Larger fish wishing to be cleaned may change colors; flare out their gills, positioned there heads upward or downward, all indications that they are ready to be serviced by a Senorita.  Frequent visitors to the cleaning station of the Senoritas include bat rays, garbaldis, ocean sunfishes, opaleyes and kelp basses. Cleaning stations provide an ecologically   important niche within a kelp forest community keeping fish healthier by reducing their parasitic load. As adults, Senoritas are known to graze on bryozoans and hydroids that encrust the blades of kelp.

Despite their viable service within a kelp forest community, senoritas like most fish must remain alert to predators that lurk among the blades of kelp. In addition to predation by fish and marine invertebrates, California sea lions or Brandt’s cormorants, may dive among the kelp blades in search of a slender meal, a lovely Senorita.  Like some other wrasses, senoritas have evolved a unique escape strategy.  When threatened, the slim torpedo shaped fish will dive into the sand then peer out among the rubble with only their heads exposed. As light begins to fade and the nocturnal world unfolds, senoritas will take to the sandy bottom again, tucking themselves in among the grains. Buried within the sandy bottom, they will avoid nighttime predators and wait for the arrival of light signaling their safe return to an established cleaning arena.