Clownfish are exciting fish everyone loves seeing on the Great Barrier Reef
When snorkelling or scuba diving on the Great Barrier Reef, you can be sure that a family of Clownfish will put a smile on your face. All Clownfish live in the safety of the anemone, with the largest always being the family’s mother.
Native across a sizable portion of the warm Pacific and Indian oceans and the Great Barrier Reef, some species’ ranges overlap with those of other species.
There are no clownfish in the Atlantic Ocean.
Sea anemones and Clownfish have a mutually beneficial connection.
The Clownfish will protect an anemone or coral after it has become used to it.
Clownfish have beautiful, almost iridescent oranges with white stripes. That’s fascinating! Clownfish forming pairs with adults and juveniles is a unique and interesting behavior. These family dynamics can make for incredible underwater observations on your Australian travel sites, highlighting the captivating marine life found in Australia’s waters.
While most fish is orange, three stripes of white are bordered by black that rap around the Clownfish. The middle bar has a preceding rounded stripe.
How big do Clownfish grow?
This species, which can reach a length of 8 cm, feeds on zooplankton and algae.
Two types of sea anemones’ tentacles often host it. It typically resides in Heteractis Magnifica on outer reefs and Stichodactyla gigantea in protected inshore reefs.
Where do they live?
They live in water depths of 1 to 12 metres in coral reefs.
Clownfish live in Queensland and Melanesia’s tropical marine seas. They are well-known throughout Australia’s Great Barrier Reef.
Only Clownfish and damselfish fish may escape an anemone’s lethal stings.
Given that it takes many days to adapt to a new type of anemone, it is possible that the mucous covering mimics the anemone’s coating.
Juvenile Clownfish with no mucous coating would seek safety in any appropriate anemone and won’t be harmed credence to this notion. Few juveniles discover an anemone before being devoured, making it difficult to survive for very long.
Reproduction
Clownfish occupy one anemone at a time and dwell in groups. A single female or a few females typically live with several male fish. The dominant male switches sex and becomes the dominant female after the dominant female dies. Then the largest of the other member of the family becomes the dad.
Any flat surface near or protected by their host anemones is a suitable location to lay their eggs. Clownfish spawn in the wild around a full moon, and the male parent watches over the eggs until they hatch around 6 to 10 days later, usually two hours after dusk falls.
What do they eat?
Clownfish are omnivorous; they can thrive on live meat, fish flakes, and fish pellets in captivity. In the wild, they consume live food such as algae, plankton, molluscs, and crustacea. They primarily consume copepods, mysids, and the undigested waste products of the anemones that serve as their hosts.
Symbolic Relationships
Clownfish are shielded from the anemone’s poison by a unique covering of mucus on their skin. They benefit the anemone from predator protection and access to leftover anemone food by living in and around it. The family of Clownfish clean the anemone by consuming and eliminating parasites. They will aggressively chase away butterflyfish that would like to eat the anemone.
The Celebrity Nemo
In the Pixar animated movie Finding Nemo, the Clown Anemonefish achieved global fame.
There are many exciting things to learn about Australia’s Great Barrier Reef.
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