Clown Anemonefish
Posted on June 17th, 2008
Thanks to Walt Disney Pictures and Pixar Animation Studio’s Finding Nemo, a wonderful fluorescent-orange spine-cheeked clown anemonefish (simply known as clownfish) becomes one of the most recognised species of fish around the world. The fish is in the subfamily Amphiprioninae from the family Pomacrntridge and approximately 28 species are found.
The clown anemonefish are tropical marine fish and occurs in the waters of Melanesia and Queensland especially around Australia’s Great Barrie Reef and the red Sae. The fish are overall orange, yellow, reddish or blackish with three distinctive white bars and black marking on the fins. The smallest species is usually less than 11 cm in length while the largest can reach a length of 18 cm and commonly named for their multicoloured habitat called sea anemone.
The nature always astonishes us, all clownfish are born male but they can change their sex only when they want to be the dominant of a group and once they do that, they will become a female forever.
Clownfish are commonly introduced to the aquarium and the tank-bred clownfish are found less disease affected by stress and have more disease resistant compared to wild-caught clownfish. When a sea anemone where they shelter is not provided in an aquarium, they might lodge in some soft corals or polyp stony corals. By doing so, they can kill the corals and damage the fish’s skin.