Best Animal Pair

A few days ago, I read an article written by The New York Times. The article was about an ocelot and an opposum, who are usually predator and prey, caught on camera, seen walking together in the Amazon rainforest. This shocked and confused the scientists doing the study. Why would the ocelot be walking with its potential meal? They made several theories on why this would be. Perhaps they were working together to catch lesser prey. Maybe the ocelot was stalking the opposum?

Well, I believe those theories are wrong. I’m not a scientist, and I know nothing about hunting except for the time my cat caught a fly, two mice, and three cockroaches. But there was one theory the scientists hadn’t thought of: unanticipated alliance. In books, it’s always the bully and the bullied that make friends, so who’s to say animals can’t do the same? Maybe they’re besties, and they just wanted to take a late-night walk. Maybe they’re a pair, and we just haven’t found out yet.

Talking about pairs, there is one animal pair that is so unexpected that the first time I read it, I thought it was a joke. Okay, ready? Picture this in your mind:

A large, sleek shark swims through the dark, cold waters of the Pacific Ocean. Fish and other smaller marine creatures leave a wide berth around the creature, aware of the power that courses beneath the curved body.

And then there’s the little suckerfish, a little guy with an eternally open and round mouth. When one looks at the suckerfish from the bottom, its gaping mouth makes it look like it’s screaming. It latches onto the shark’s back happily, sucking away the parasites and food it finds.

The shark doesn’t eat the little guy. Rather, while the suckerfish is still attached to its body, it goes about its daily business. The shark could very easily kill the suckerfish, and yet, it doesn’t. I think that’s very cute, don’t you?

Anyway,