Marlin and Nemo Are Going To Mate
The opening to Finding Nemo is one of Pixar’s saddest moments. When Marlin’s wife Coral and their eggs are eaten by a barracuda, the large clownfish family is reduced to just Marlin and his little son Nemo. Except, assuming that Pixar clownfish follow the biology of real clownfish, this won’t be much of a problem for long. Once Nemo is old enough, Marlin is going to switch genders and produce more offspring with his son. No, really, it’s true.
Real-life clownfish are born hermaphroditic and their communities are based around alpha females. If something happens to the female of the group, one of the males will stop producing hormones and take her place. The new female will then proceed to get frisky with any and every male clownfish around. Hey, maybe that’s why Marlin was so protective of Nemo?
You can kind of see why Pixar decided to leave this fundamental piece of biology out of their movie. While it would have been an informative lesson for kids about the clownfish reproductive cycle, we’re not sure Finding Nemo would be the family favourite it is today if it’d promoted incest.