JHardman quote:
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Originally posted by ezhoops
Sorry, Also if a clown is kept singly it will USUALLY (not always 100%) turn into the female and remember once they are females they cannot turn back.
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Would you care to sight your references for this?
John,
here is my references
JHARDMAN wrote on 7/15/2003 (thread titled Sexing clownfish)
"Q: What is the nature of clownfish in terms of gender?
A: Clownfish are protandrous hermaphrodites. Clownfish are hatched sexually immature or in other words sexless, neither male or female. This in the simplest of terms means that they change sex from sexless to male to female. This is a one way trip; sexless to male never to be sexless again and male to female never to male again. They may spend their entire life as a sexually immature fish depending on their environment."
"Examples of Clownfishes sex change.
A single clownfish kept by it's self:
if a single clownfish is kept by it's self it will become a female clownfish."
Another source
"Once a clownfish becomes male, it cannot return to being an adolescent again. Further, if the clownfishes's social surrounding lacks a female, the hormonal balance then changes in the male......This hormonal shift causes the male fish to grow more and become more aggressive, and he soon develops ovaries and becomes a functioning female. Once a clownfish becomes a female, she is permanently female and can never again be a functioning male......this entire conversion in gender can be completed in a month or less. This sequential sexuality is called Protandrous (Prot=first;androus=male) hermaphroditism."
Joyce D. Wilkerson "Clownfishes p.134"
Eric