Not All Fishes Are Born To Be Completely Male or Female

I saw the animation Finding Nemo and I love it. Actually I am a fan of animations and I just love to see one or two when I am less busy even though I love other types of movies including Horror and Drama, but while watching Nemo I couldn't but feel that something was wrong in the movie. How come Nemo's father didn't become the mother when Nemo's mom was wrecked by a Barracuda and she died. You are beginning to wonder what I am saying and why will the father become the mother since he is already the father. Actually, Nemo and her parents are Clown fishes and that's the reason I said so. There are a lot of aquatic animals or fishes that are Sequential Hermaphrodites and let me discuss them with you.

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This is because according to the complex hierarchy of clownfishes, they are all born males with the biggest of them being the female. So the female is responsible for reproduction of the lower fishes which will be male from birth but if for any reason, the female fish leaves the ecosystem either as a result of death or migration, the next Big clownfish which is the dominant male in the hierarchy will transition to become the female and every other fish beneath takes a step up on the hierarchical ladder. This is known as protandrous hermaphroditism.

Just like there are animals that from males to females, there are also animals that can transform from females to males. One fish that does this is the Asian Sheepshead Wrasse (*Semicossyphus reticulatus), and they are all born females of which over the course of their lives they become males. The males mate with the females and it dominates the females in the territory until the females become big and they transform into a male after which they fight with the already existing male to become dominant and gain ownership of the territory as well as the right to all the female in the territory. Just like the Asian Sheephead Wrasse, the Blue Headed Wrasse also transform from female to male and they are both sexually dimorphic.

animalia

I have talked about fishes transitioning from males to females, and from females to males but do you know we have those can be transform to both sexes with ease. An example of such is Gobiodon verticallis (Broad Barred Goby) and this animal switch for the purpose of reproduction. When two males meet and they intend to colonize a region, one switches to a female for the purpose of reproduction and when two females meet, one switch to a male so reproduction can occur.

Flickr

Some animals are Synchronous Hermaphrodites as they are able to release both the sperm and the egg. An example of fishes that exhibit this type of reproductive ability is the Hamlet fish and when this fish mate, it does so that the two fishes will fertilize one another. The mating will occur twice where one will act as the male to fertilize the female and next time, the one that acted as the male will act as the female to be fertilized by the previous one that acted as a female. This process is called egg swapping

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<sup>https://www.worldwildlife.org/stories/are-there-queer-animals-clownfish


https://www.emperordivers.com/clownfish-male-female

https://www.bbcearth.com/news/fish-are-the-sex-switching-masters
https://owlcation.com/stem/The-Kobudai-and-the-California-Sheephead-Fish
https://www.divephotoguide.com/underwater-photography-special-features

https://www.newscientist.com/article/2209254-bluehead-wrasse-fish-switch
https://www.latrobe.edu.au/news/articles/2020/opinion







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