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Finding Nemo’s Clownfish, Middle school

Two clownfish in a purple sea anemone on a reef in Palau

In Finding Nemo, Nemo’s mom is lost at the start of the movie, and his dad, Marlin, raises him alone.

In a wild clownfish family, could a dad like Marlin become the mom?

Video 1. Finding Nemo got the clownfish wrong

Clownfish live in groups inside an anemone, and the biggest fish is the female. When the female is gone, the biggest male turns into a female. So after Nemo’s mom was gone, Marlin would have become the mom.

Video 2. Nemo is probably not Marlin’s son

Clownfish parents guard their eggs until the eggs hatch. Then the babies drift in open water for about a week and a half and usually settle in a different anemone. Scientists used DNA from clownfish on 310 anemones to build a family tree, and relatives shared an anemone only about 2% of the time.

A common clownfish in the tentacles of a sea anemone
A tadpole is the larva of a frog.

Your word of the day is

LAHR-vuh

larvaghost, maskfrom Latin larva

A young animal that hatches from an egg and looks far different from the adult it will become.

A group of clownfish swimming together

In a clownfish group, the biggest fish is the mom, and the second biggest is the dad.

When the mom in a clownfish group is gone, what happens to the dad?

A two-banded clownfish in a sea anemone

When the mom in a clownfish group is gone, what happens to the smaller fish waiting in line?

Fish swimming over a coral reef

Clownfish parents guard their eggs day and night, but the babies drift away the night they hatch.

How does guarding the eggs help clownfish parents?

Two clownfish on a sea anemone

Most young fish on Kimbe Island had Kimbe Island parents, but family members shared an anemone only about 2% of the time.

How can most young fish on Kimbe Island have Kimbe Island parents while family members rarely share an anemone?

Clownfish swimming in and out of the tentacles of a sea anemone on a coral reef

The Kimbe Island scientists took thousands of tiny fin clips from clownfish.

To find each young fish’s parents, the Kimbe Island scientists tested the ____ in each fin clip.

Two clownfish sharing a sea anemone, darting among its tentacles

In the movie, Nemo grows up in the same home as his dad, Marlin.

What do baby clownfish do the night they hatch?

A clownfish swimming through the waving tentacles of its anemone home

On Kimbe Island, family members shared an anemone only about ____ of the time.

Several clownfish crowded together in one sea anemone

Lesson complete

Today’s word

larva

LAHR-vuh

A young animal, newly hatched from its egg, that looks far different from the adult it will grow into.

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Up nextparthenogenetic chimaeraBlood XX, skin XY
Sources
  1. Océane Salles, Benoit Pujol, Serge Planes and seven co-authors, led from the Université de Perpignan Via Domitia in France, PNAS, 2016
  2. Madison Pacaro, Tina Barbasch, Michaela Rogers, Juan Chavez, Peter Buston and John Majoris, Boston University, Ethology, 2023
  3. Peter Buston, Steven Bogdanowicz, Alex Wong and Richard Harrison, Molecular Ecology, 2007
  4. Peter Buston, Proceedings of the Royal Society B, 2004
  5. Theresa Rueger, Peter Buston and colleagues at Boston University and James Cook University, Proceedings of the Royal Society B, 2018
  6. Laura Casas, Xabier Irigoien and colleagues at King Abdullah University of Science and Technology in Saudi Arabia, Scientific Reports, 2016
  7. John Pearce, The Auk, 2007
  8. Vision and Change core concepts and competencies, as summarized in Brownell and others, CBE Life Sciences Education, 2014
  9. Word origins from Dictionary.com: larva, Lares, larvicide, philo-, patri-, proto-, proton, andro-, protandrous
  10. Spanish and French spellings from Wiktionary
  11. Instagram originals of video 1 and video 2, not linked because Instagram needs a login