Finding Nemo was wrong, because Marlin, the lost fish's father, would have turned into a female to protect the family after death of the mother, scientists have found.
Male clownfish, immortalised in the Disney film, change sex completely if their female mate is eaten or dies, research by marine biologists has shown.
New findings presented at a symposium at the University of Exeter shows that male clownfish – which are a distinctive orange colour with blue-white stripes bordered by black - become female to protect their territory and group.
Female clownfish are larger and more aggressive than males and even attack sharks.
Clownfish, live in tropical climates on anemones where they stay their entire lives. Male fish tend to look after the eggs and fan them while females act as security guards, scanning the surroundings for predators, issuing warning calls and even launching attacks.
In the classic tale of fatherhood, Finding Nemo, the young clownfish’s mother is eaten by a barracuda but his father, Marlin survives. Nemo, the only surviving baby, is then lost and pursued by sharks before eventually finding his way back to his father.
In reality, if a mother clownfish is eaten, its mate changes sex completely and becomes a female, even laying eggs. To ensure the survival of the clownfish group, Marlin would have become Marlene, and mated with a younger male from the adolescent population already living on the anemone.
Dr Suzanne Mills, an evolutionary biologist from École Pratique des Hautes Études in France said: “The largest individual is the female, and if that female gets predated upon or dies, the male - Nemo’s dad - then changes sex and becomes a reproductive female.
“So when Nemo finally gets back to his anemone at the end of the film, he’s actually meeting his Mum.
“The female is aggressive to predators. If she dies or is eaten then the male changes sex over a few weeks. There need to be lots of hormonal changes to become fully female. When the male has changed sex, the largest sub-adult male becomes her new mate with whom she lays eggs. We’re investigating how these hormonal, behavioural and physiological characteristics of anemonefish are affected by climate change and other human-induced changes such as boat engine noise ”
The findings were presented at the 50th Anniversary Symposium of the Fisheries Society of the British Isles at the University of Exeter.
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