Anyone ever see a non-goby guide a pistol shrimp?

[Inertiatic]

I've had this tiger pistol shrimp for around 7 years now. He was paired with a hi-fin red banded goby and they survived a move together. A few years back the goby disappeared and the shrimp has been on his own since then, always digging in his cave as usual and fending for himself to grab food as it was dropped down.

Then today I noticed that my shrimp was out of his cave wanting to climb on a rock. My tomini tang saw this, swam to the pistol shrimp, and then swam in place slightly on his side so he was touching the antenna of the shrimp. The instant this happened, the pistol shrimp used this new confidence and climbed the rock. I've also seen my lemon peel half black angel swim with the goby, but never guide him like this.

This absolutely blew my mind. Has anyone else experienced this before?

 

[ndrwater]

Fish are weird...

 

[Inertiatic]

Yea they are! I'll try to catch a video of it sometime. They both shared a cave in a temporary tank recently, was a small 20 gallon while my replacement tank was being shipped. I wonder if this is when it all started.

 

[35ppt]

Very cool!

 

[Inertiatic]

Was able to get a video of it happening. Not as apparent as the situation I mentioned, but enough to notice the behavior.

Edit: Replaced the MOV file with a mp4, hopefully this works now.