ABSTRACT

Clownfishes 1 are brightly colored fishes that became literally famous to the general public in 2003 due to the release of “Finding Nemo”, an American computer-animated film produced by Pixar Animation Studios. Yet, it was in the mid-20th century with the advent of scuba diving that clownfishes began to be known worldwide. Numerous investigations conducted by naturalists and marine scientists have contributed to various underwater discoveries, and among them the fascinating natural history of clownfishes. These fishes are especially well known for their outstanding symbiosis with tropical sea anemones that was first reported in 1868 (Collingwood 1868). This intimate relationship has become a textbook example for mutualistic interactions (Fautin and Allen 1997, Ollerton et al. 2007, Ricciardi et al. 2010). A great deal of attention has been given to the nature of this symbiosis and the immunity mechanisms which enable the fish to live unharmed among the stinging tentacles of its host. Admittedly, this is the most glamorous aspect of the general biology of clownfishes, but the considerable emphasis placed on this topic has tended to obscure other equally interesting areas of research such as their evolutionary history, their social structure and sex change, their reproductive behavior and their acoustic communication.