ABSTRACT
The best known of the symbiotic associations to be found on the reef must be that between the colourful red and white banded clownfish and the giant sea-anemones in which they live. These blennies, like others of the same family, often spend much of their time in the shelter of small holes in the coral, especially the neat tube-like holes extending into live corals made by boring shellfish or tubeworms which are no longer there. Most other damselfishes show a greater or lesser degree of attachment to particular hiding-places on the reef, and often corals are present around these hiding places and must thus be tolerated. In particular, species of the genus Dascyllus live among the branches of various bushy shaped corals. These corals are, of course, like anemones, members of the phylum Coelenterata, and like them they have stinging cells, albeit with a less powerful action.
