The truth about Nemo

or, What the kiddies don't know about anemone fish.

The largest and socially dominant fish in an anemone is the female. She has functioning ovaries with remnants of male gonads. The smaller male may be less than half the size of the female, and has functioning testes but also non-functioning female sex cells.

If the dominant female dies, the male's gonads stop working as testes and his egg-producing cells become active. At the same time, the largest of the non-breeding individuals living in the anemone becomes the functioning male.

So now you know the truth about what happened when Nemo's mother died. It. is. Sick.