Birth & Hatching
- Start as eggs laid on a piece of coral, rock or just near the anemone where they live.
- At this place the male clown fish protects the eggs by building a nest around them.
- From about 100 - 100 000 eggs are laid
- They hatch in about 7 days
- (All clown fish start off as males)
Fry (Young clown fish)
- The newly hatched clown fish are called Fry
- The Fry must catch their own food. They will usually go for small, slow organisms that they can catch easily.
- The Fry start off in a very orange colour but with age they become a darker shade.
- At this stage the clown fish are beginning to adapt to their anemones.
Adult Clown Fish
- The adult clown fish have gone from Fry that are only a few MMs long to adults that are approximately 11cm
- At about this age of adult hood the clown fish either remains male or becomes female.
- The biggest clown fish will always become female.
Mating
- Clown Fish mate at about the same time each year in tropical waters
- The male clown fish attracts the female clown fish through courting (biting, chasing, holding out fins)
- The mating is sometimes called the mating dance.
- The clown fish then chase each other to where the eggs will be laid and the process restarts.
Mating Dance
References
- http://tolweb.org/treehouses/?treehouse_id=3390
- http://www.forumopolis.com/showthread.php?t=108263
- http://animals.nationalgeographic.com.au/animals/fish/clown-anemonefish/
- http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20070208155512AA4dZ6k
- http://cbartazo.files.wordpress.com/2012/01/clown-fish-21.jpg
The Life Cycle of a
Clown Fish