Crustacean cleaner: Russell Laman gets the unusual dental treatment (Picture: Caters)

Having your teeth picked clean by a shrimp after enticing it into your mouth is certainly more exotic than using a tube of toothpaste.

Young diver Russell Laman had tiny bits of food removed by the cleaner shrimp after waiting in line with a queue of fish, in Bali, Indonesia.

‘It felt like tiny little dentists picking away at my teeth and scuttling around my mouth,’ said the 13-year-old.

‘It tickled a little but not too badly.’


The teenager said he thought having the fish cater to his dentistry needs would be ‘cool’.

He added: ‘It is a large part of the ecosystem underwater and many fish rely on the shrimp so I decided to rely on them as well.’



Russell’s father, Tim, of Lexington, Massachusetts, in the US, took photos at the ‘cleaning station’.

He said: ‘It really is pretty amazing that these little shrimp immediately recognize a human mouth as analogous to a fish mouth and go in looking for bits of food.’