Symbiosis Worksheet – Mutualism, Commensalism, Parasitism

All 24 pairs

Mutualism 8

ant and acacia tree The bullhorn acacia gives the ants hollow thorns to live in and food; the ants defend the tree.
bee and flower The bee gets nectar and pollen to eat and carries pollen from flower to flower.
cleaner wrasse and reef fish The wrasse eats parasites off the skin of bigger fish: a meal for one, a cleaning for the other.
clover and root bacteria Bacteria in knobs on the roots turn nitrogen from the air into a form the plant can use, and the plant houses and feeds them.
clownfish and sea anemone The stinging tentacles shelter the clownfish, and the clownfish drives off fish that eat anemones.
coral and algae Algae living inside the coral make sugars for it from sunlight and get carbon dioxide and other nutrients back.
fungus and tree roots The fungus brings the tree water and minerals from the soil, and the tree feeds it sugars.
goby and pistol shrimp The shrimp digs and tends a burrow for both; the goby keeps watch and warns the nearly blind shrimp of danger.

Show all 24 pairs (16 more)

Commensalism 8

barnacle and whale The barnacle rides through water full of food. The whale is generally neither helped nor harmed.
brittle star and coral In the deep sea the brittle star grips a coral and is lifted off the sea floor into the current that carries its food.
cattle egret and cow The bird catches the insects that the grazing cow stirs up.
emperor shrimp and sea slug The small shrimp lives on the back of a large sea slug or sea cucumber.
gopher frog and tortoise The frog shelters in the burrow a gopher tortoise has dug. Hundreds of other animals do the same.
hermit crab and snail shell The crab protects its soft body in a shell that a sea snail left behind.
orchid and tree Many orchids perch on a branch for support alone and take no food from the tree.
pseudoscorpion and fly The tiny pseudoscorpion grips the fly's leg and gets a ride to a new place.

Parasitism 8

cuckoo and reed warbler The cuckoo lays its egg in the warbler's nest, and the warbler raises the cuckoo chick.
dodder and clover Dodder is a thin vine with almost no green of its own. It taps the stems of other plants for water and food.
flea and dog Fleas live on mammals and birds and feed on their blood.
leech and fish Fish leeches cling to the outside of a fish and feed on its blood.
mistletoe and apple tree Mistletoe grows into the branch and draws water and nutrients out of the tree.
sea lamprey and lake trout The lamprey fastens its sucker mouth to the trout and feeds on its blood.
tick and deer The tick feeds on the blood of the deer.
varroa mite and honey bee The mite lives on honey bees and feeds on them.

How this list was compiled: List written for this site on 2026-10-16. A pair stands under a heading only where a page read that day puts it there. The three kinds of symbiosis: the English Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/), whose text is under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike license, articles Symbiosis, Mutualism (biology), Commensalism and Parasitism; the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, What is symbiosis? (https://oceanexplorer.noaa.gov/facts/symbiosis.html), which also describes brittle stars living in the branches of deep-sea corals; and the National Geographic Society, Symbiosis: The Art of Living Together (https://education.nationalgeographic.org/resource/symbiosis-art-living-together/), which gives clownfish and sea anemones as mutualism, barnacles on whales as commensalism, coral and its algae as mutualism and leeches among parasites. The pairs, at their Wikipedia articles: Clownfish and Symbiosis (clownfish and anemone; goby and shrimp; coral and algae; plants and mycorrhizal fungi; hermit crabs and snail shells), Pollination (bees and flowers), Zooxanthellae, Vachellia cornigera (the bullhorn acacia and its ants), Bluestreak cleaner wrasse and Cleaning symbiosis, Alpheidae (pistol shrimp and gobies), Mycorrhiza, Rhizobia and Biological interaction (bacteria in the root nodules of legumes), Whale barnacle (generally considered commensal), Cattle egret, Commensalism (hermit crabs; the brittle star and the octocoral), Gopher tortoise (burrow commensals, the gopher frog among them), Zenopontonia rex (the emperor shrimp, long listed as Periclimenes imperator), Pseudoscorpion and Phoresis, Epiphyte and Orchid, Tick (ticks and deer), Flea, Mistletoe, Common cuckoo, Sea lamprey, Cuscuta (dodder), Varroa destructor and Leech (the fish leeches). For the answer on the remora: the article Remora, which calls the tie probably mutualistic in one place and most often commensal in another. Licence: own work

How it works

This symbiosis worksheet prints a word box of twelve pairs of living things, such as clownfish and sea anemone, barnacle and whale and tick and deer, above three headings: Mutualism, Commensalism and Parasitism.

Read the full guide

Who gets what

The list under the tool gives the reason for every pair. The clownfish gets a safe home among the stinging tentacles and drives off fish that eat anemones. The barnacle gets a ride through water full of food, and the whale is neither helped nor harmed. The tick gets a meal of blood at the deer's cost.

In every pair the partner named first is the one that gains. The heading depends on what happens to the second.

Questions and answers

What are the three types of symbiosis?

Mutualism, in which both partners benefit; commensalism, in which one benefits and the other is neither helped nor harmed; and parasitism, in which one benefits at the cost of the other, its host.

Is a remora and a shark commensalism or mutualism?

It is most often called commensalism: the remora gets a ride at no cost to its host. Remoras also eat parasites off the host, and for that reason some call it mutualism. The sheet leaves the pair out.

Is there a symbiosis worksheet for 5th grade?

The sheet prints no grade, and it is free. A pupil decides one thing a pair: what happens to the partner named second. The only science words on it are the three headings.

Does the symbiosis worksheet have an answer key?

Yes, as its last page: the same three columns with every pair written under its heading. For a symbiosis review, the reasons are in the list under the tool.

What is the difference between symbiosis and mutualism?

Symbiosis is any close, long-term relationship between two different species, whoever gains. Mutualism is the kind of symbiosis in which both do.