Monday, June 2, 2025

Clownfish

 If your favorite movie is Finding Nemo, you might want to skip this. 

Or maybe not, it makes the whole thing a bit hilarious if I think on it much, but it might kill the movie for you. 

Finding Nemo made the Clownfish a lot more famous than before, but they were already common enough since they are rather distinctive looking. You'll have to imagine them though, because I apparently can't upload images right now. I might kill Centurylink soon. Feel free to leave them a bad review somewhere.  

So, the black bands between the orange and white depend on where they live. Clownfish live in a symbiotic relationship with three species of anemone, and their black bands can be wider or thinner depending on which anemone they live with. Their bright colors attract other fish to come to the anemone, providing it with food, and they are protected from predators and get to eat the scraps. There are theories that the mucus covering their bodies has something in it to protect them from the anemone stings, but it's yet to be proven. There are a lot of anemone fish similar to clownfish, living in the other species of anemone, similar to the clownfish everyone knows. 

In another show of male fish being better than some human dads, the males guard the eggs once they are laid. They also are the ones in charge of raising the young, with only a bit of help from the female. The female focuses on protecting their territory. 

Now for the part that gets them a post during Pride Month:

They live in groups of males with one dominant male, and one dominant female, and all babies are born male. If the female dies, the dominant male will turn into a female, and the second largest male will become the dominant male. 

This is known as sequential hermaphroditism, among other things. During the change, which can take months, the male fish turns into a female entirely, down to the shift in instincts and the ability to lay eggs. Clownfish aren't the only ones able to do this. There are several other animals that go male/female depending on the situation. 

I count that as proof that God doesn't mind shifting from male to female, or vice versa. 


Sources:

Ask a Geneticist-- How does a Clownfish Change Gender (This one is really good for the science behind it)

Australian Museum-- Clownfish (Rewriting Finding Nemo)

Mote- Animal Encyclopedia-- Clown Fish

Barrier Reef Foundation-- Clownfish

Discover Wildlife-- Clownfish

Aquarium of the Pacific-- Clownfish

Nature.Com-- Science Reports-- Sex Changes in Clown Fish

World Wildlife Fund-- Queer Animals

Rhodes Lab-- Socially Influenced Sex Change in Anemone Fish

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