Clownfish are known for their remarkable ability to change sex to survive. Turns out, one species, clown anemonefish (Amphiprion percula), popularized in the Pixar hit movie Finding Nemo, have yet another surprising survival trick up their fins: they can also shrink themselves to weather heat waves and dodge social squabbles. When things get hot and tense on the reef, these little fish size down to stay alive and keep the peace, a new study finds. Published this May in Science Advances, the study reveals a fascinating finding: these clownfish can actually get shorter — not just skinnier — to survive extreme heat. And this shrinking strategy boosts their odds of making it through a heat wave by up to 78%. Melissa Versteeg, the study’s lead author and a doctoral researcher at Newcastle University in the U.K., said the shrinking in length was the most surprising finding. “That wasn’t anything we’d witnessed before,” she told Mongabay by email. She said she was also struck by how shrinking helped the fish survive heat stress. And then they “also bounce back when they can.” To dive into this curious survival strategy, the research team, working with the Mahonia Na Dari Conservation and Research Centre in Kimbe Bay, Papua New Guinea, observed 67 breeding pairs of wild clown anemonefish from February to August 2023. This study period overlapped with the world’s fourth global coral bleaching event, during which local water temperatures surged as much as 4° Celsius (7.2° Fahrenheit) above the long-term average. The…This article was originally published on Mongabay
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