You imposter you
'Nemo' fish a transexual
From a correspondent in Paris
CHILDREN who rush out to buy a clownfish, the cute little star of the new Disney cartoon Nemo, may be getting something that their parents may not have bargained for: a piscatorial transsexual.
Animal behaviourist Peter Buston of New York's Cornell University studied groups of clownfish (Amphiprion percula) in tanks.
Each group of clownfish, he discovered, comprises a breeding pair and up to four non-breeders.
At the top of the social hierarchy is the largest fish, a female breeder; she is followed by the second largest fish, a breeding male.
After them, progressively smaller in size as they decrease in rank, come the non-breeders.
Buston found that if he removed the top-ranking female, the breeding male changed sex and increased in size to become the female breeder.
That caused a knock-on effect throughout the group.
The largest non-breeder became the breeding male, and all the other non-breeders increased in size as they moved up a social notch.
Clownfish - an aquarium-lover's delight because of their orange "face" and white rings - make the astonishing switch in sex and size in order to ensure harmony within their group, Buston suggests in Thursday's issue of Nature, the British science weekly.
Now..
I wonder which of our Southern Nemo lovers wife is gonna get the flick and..who is next in line
And...whats this about it wont hurt a bit...the above would make ya eyes water something awful.
