The beloved Disney movie "Finding Nemo" got one not-so-minor detail about clownfish completely wrong.
If the good folks at Disney had gotten the science right, it would have made for a very different film indeed, which North Carolina State fish biologist Patrick Cooney describes at The Fisheries Blog:
Father and mother clownfish are tending to their clutch of eggs at their sea anemone when the mother is eaten by a barracuda. Nemo hatches as an undifferentiated hermaphrodite (as all clownfish are born) while his father transforms into a female now that his female mate is dead. Since Nemo is the only other clownfish around, he becomes a male and mates with his father (who is now a female). Should his father die, Nemo would change into a female and mate with another male. Although a much different storyline, it still sounds like a crazy adventure!
In short, clownfish are nature's trannies.
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