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"Clownfish
and Anemone"
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One of America’s most famous and adored marine fish, the
Clownfish, may be even goofier than their name suggests. These cute orange and white fish that we have
grown to love, thanks to the Disney movie “Finding
Nemo”, actually live a very twisted sexual life. You see, the clownfish is hermaphroditic,
meaning that they can play the role of both male and female fish. Although this seems very strange to us
humans, it is actually a fairly common practice in the aquatic world. There are
said to be as many as 21 families of fish that behave in this kinky manner
(Stephens). I don’t know about you but that makes me think twice about the cleanliness
of the ocean we swim in.
The clownfish specifically is known as a protandrous
sequential hermaphrodite, not to be confused with the protogynous sequential
hermaphrodites. To break this down,
sequential hermaphrodites are those which “develop as one gender before
changing to the other gender” later in life (Cooney). Of the sequential hermaphrodites there are
the two types. The protandrous start out
as males and can later switch to females, while the protogynous develop as
females first and then switch to males. So
let’s tie this all together in terms of the clownfish.
Imagine you are a clownfish that just hatched from its egg. You start off life as an undifferentiated
male with just your mom and dad around. Sadly,
something happens to the mother and she’s gone which just leaves you and your
dad living in this small hypothetical
population. In the name of procreation your
dad changes into a female to allow for spawning. As if it isn’t weird enough, you now must
breed with your female father to
start a new generation. This happens and
a new generation of undifferentiated males is hatched. Tragically, after the spawning season is over
a shark swam in and ate the father! Being the oldest male you take a long look
around and find that there aren’t any clownfish ladies swimming around and thus
it becomes your turn to become a female.
This is the reproductive behaviors of the clown fish and in general for
any sequential hermaphrodite (Cooney).
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| Image from Cooney |
Although this seems very strange to us humans who don’t
naturally change genders, it is both commonplace and beneficial for these fish. For a
small clownfish, it is a truly a “fish-eat-fish” ocean out there. Living this type of hermaphroditic lifestyle
ensures that there are always both male and females around to safeguard the
population density.
If you are still baffled by how these fish reproduce (don't worry its so foreign to us that it is not an easy concept to grasp) then check out the short video below. It does a great job at displaying how the clownfish changes sex and reproduce.
References:
BeckmanInstitute.
“Sex-Changing Clownfish.” Online video clip. YouTube. YouTube, 27 September 2012. Web. 23 February 2014.
Chow, Samuel. Clownfish and Anemone. 7 October 2010. Ask Nature. Web. 23 February 2014.
Cooney, Patrick. “Finding
Nemo Lied…” The Fisheries Blog.” The
Fisheries Blog.com Web. 18 February 2014.
Stephens,
Christina. “List of Hermaphrodite Animals.” Animals.
Demand Media. Web. 18 February 2014.
Thanks for explaining the process of protanderous sequential hermaphrodism in a step by step example. It really made it easier to understand how the clownfish change sex. Now that I understand the process, why didn't Marlin change into a female when Coral died? Come on Disney.. get it right! :)
ReplyDeleteNeat post! Thank you for sharing. I did not know that fish could have this sort of reproductive behavior. It seems like the only option though if you are one of only two of your kind left in a population.
ReplyDeleteI think this would have made Finding Nemo really disturbing if Disney would have stuck with the facts! In all seriousness: I had no idea that the clownfish did this, and I think it's pretty neat. I would assume that once you change you can't go back, correct?
ReplyDeleteLets all be glad Disney did not make Finding Nemo accurate! I read that some fish species have the ability to switch back and forth between genders, but many can only switch once. I didn't find anything about the clownfish specifically switching mulitiple times, so I would assume it can only switch once.
ReplyDelete