If you’ve seen the Pixar film Finding Nemo, then you’ll be familiar with the clownfish, which has an orange body and white stripes. These stripes give them a unique and distinctive look, but it turns out they also serve a more important purpose – helping the fish tell friend from foe.
Although they are friendly in the film, they are in fact very feisty fish. “These are literally among the most aggressive animals on our planet,” marine neuroscientist Justin Rhodes told Science magazine.
The fish are mainly interested in attacking members of their own species, to defend their position in the pecking order (like a clownfish popularity contest). However, it was not clear how they could tell the difference between the 28 different species of clownfish they might encounter in the wild. To find out, a team of researchers at the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology in Japan took 50 clownfish and placed them in individual tanks. These fish had three stripes, while other clownfish species have fewer stripes or none at all. Slowly they introduced more three-striped fish into nearby tanks, so the fish could see the newcomers, along with others with a different number of stripes or none at all. What they found was that the fish were most aggressive towards their own species (those with three stripes). The fish had barriers be...
Although they are friendly in the film, they are in fact very feisty fish. “These are literally among the most aggressive animals on our planet,” marine neuroscientist Justin Rhodes told Science magazine.
The fish are mainly interested in attacking members of their own species, to defend their position in the pecking order (like a clownfish popularity contest). However, it was not clear how they could tell the difference between the 28 different species of clownfish they might encounter in the wild. To find out, a team of researchers at the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology in Japan took 50 clownfish and placed them in individual tanks. These fish had three stripes, while other clownfish species have fewer stripes or none at all. Slowly they introduced more three-striped fish into nearby tanks, so the fish could see the newcomers, along with others with a different number of stripes or none at all. What they found was that the fish were most aggressive towards their own species (those with three stripes). The fish had barriers be...
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The Week Junior Science+nature Uk (Digital) - 1 Issue, Issue 72