{"id":1242,"date":"2025-05-07T15:15:20","date_gmt":"2025-05-07T14:15:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thetab.com\/?p=478485"},"modified":"-0001-11-30T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"-0001-11-30T00:00:00","slug":"this-disgusting-truth-about-finding-nemo-fish-will-ruin-your-childhood-forever","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thetab.com\/filmshrine\/2025\/05\/07\/this-disgusting-truth-about-finding-nemo-fish-will-ruin-your-childhood-forever\/","title":{"rendered":"This disgusting truth about Finding Nemo fish will ruin your childhood forever"},"content":{"rendered":"

Remember Finding Nemo? That cute little clownfish adventure full of family feels, underwater laughs, and heartwarming daddy-son moments? Yeah\u2026 forget all that. Because science just came along and flushed it all down the loo. Turns out, real-life clownfish don\u2019t quite live the wholesome Disney<\/a> dream. Nope, their sex lives are straight-up weird. And if Finding Nemo had followed the facts, well\u2026 let\u2019s just say the plot would’ve made you spit out your popcorn.<\/span><\/p>\n

So, what happens in Finding Nemo?<\/h2>\n
\"\"
via Disney\/Pixar<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Finding Nemo starts with heartbreak. Marlin the clownfish loses his wife, Coral, and all their baby eggs in a terrifying fish attack, all except one little egg. That egg hatches into Nemo, the son he\u2019ll do absolutely anything to protect. Naturally, being a Disney film, Marlin becomes a helicopter parent, Nemo gets rebellious, and a diver snatches him up, kicking off a massive ocean-wide rescue mission filled with laughs, jellyfish, surfer turtles and sharks in therapy.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a sweet and emotional father-son story. Or\u2026 so we thought.<\/p>\n

So, what’s the disgusting truth?<\/h2>\n
\"\"
via Disney\/Pixar<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Umm… Clownfish, the species Nemo and Marlin belong to, have a bizarre little quirk in nature. Every clownfish is born male. All of them. But within each group, there’s a strict social hierarchy, and the biggest, baddest clownfish becomes the only female. She runs the show, and only she and her chosen male mate get to make babies. The rest of the males are just waiting in line, hoping someone dies so they can move up the pecking order.<\/p>\n

Now, when the female dies, like Coral does at the beginning of the film, the dominant male (Marlin, in this case) doesn\u2019t stay single and sad. He transforms into a female. Full biological sex change. Science calls it sequential hermaphroditism.<\/p>\n

So, what would actually happen?<\/h2>\n
\"\"
via Disney\/Pixar<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

If Pixar had kept things biologically accurate, Finding Nemo would\u2019ve been a very different movie. Marlin wouldn\u2019t have gone on a heroic quest. He would\u2019ve just chilled in the anemone, slowly turning into a mum. Meanwhile, little Nemo, being the next biggest male, would grow up to take dad-now-mum\u2019s place as her breeding partner. Nemo would become the new dominant male and, well\u2026 end up mating with what used to be his dad. The two would start popping out new little clownfish babies together, and no one in the reef would even bat a fin. Because for clownfish, that\u2019s just how life works.<\/p>\n

Unsurprisingly, the internet has lost it. Reddit<\/a> threads have blown up with people sharing their horror and confusion. One user wrote, \u201cNow you won\u2019t see Finding Nemo in the same light again,\u201d and honestly? They\u2019re not wrong. Others are taking it a step further, joking that \u201cThis is the real reason Nemo ran away\u201d or \u201cThat\u2019s why he was so desperate to find Nemo, it was time to breed.\u201d<\/p>\n

Even scientists have weighed in. Stephen R. Palumbi and Anthony R. Palumbi wrote in their book The Extreme Life of the Sea that, scientifically speaking, Marlin would\u2019ve become Nemo\u2019s mum, and the two would go on to raise a whole load of slightly incestuous Nemos. That\u2019s not just traumatising, it\u2019s evolutionary strategy.<\/p>\n

Nature is wild.<\/p>\n

For more like this, like The Tab on Facebook<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This changes everything<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":1122,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[99,4,39],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-1242","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-entertainment","tag-disney","tag-film","tag-viral"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nThis disgusting truth about Finding Nemo fish changes everything<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Find out the disgusting truth about Finding Nemo clownfish. 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