If anyone is curious (as I was):
In real life Nemo's dad would have become female after mommy got eaten. https://evolution.berkeley.edu/fisheye-view-tree-of-life/gender-bending-fish/
"of all the animals, fish are sexually the most fluid" - https://www.bbcearth.com/news/fish-are-the-sex-switching-masters-of-the-animal-kingdom
Salmon change sex too if I recall correctly.
I don't think salmon change sex to be honest. It seems from the stuff I could find that sex determination for salmon is mostly chromosomal but with divergence at certain temperature during development (or exogenous hormonal influence obviously).
The coolest paper I found while searching was this:
Natural sex change in fish - ScienceDirect - https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0070215318301145
Is it possible to learn this power?
Nature is queer in every way imaginable. Diversity is the point.
Just think of how many species would have been wiped out if it weren’t for adaptation
All of them.
I clicked this post expecting to see this image.
You didn't disappoint me.
She's awesome. They also did some Pride crafts and while her two co-workers made those Polaroid picture frames with slogans she made a big angler fish hat. Because she thinks they are awesome (she's right).
Does trans fall into the term gay now? Honest question. I understood the former to be about gender and the latter to be about sexual orientation.
For non-experts it generally falls into the "gay stuff".
(if you can explain the difference between sex and gender you're an expert)
Am trans.
No. Unless you're joking about...The Gays~
Not trying to answer the question, but the only party that suggests that in the original post is "the haters".
Well the reason I asked is because the "haters" suggest it, but then the entertains it.
And judging from the other answers I've received here, it does not seem to be a settled matter.
Not technically, but a lot of queer people use it as an umbrella term. As the saying goes: we are all f_ggots in the eyes of the state.
“Gay” as a blanket term inclusive of all alternative lifestyles and peoples. Like how saying “you guys” is inclusive of all genders.
…or using the term “Man” to refer to all of humankind.
How do fish change their gender? Are there really smart fishes having formed social constructs related to their sex?
I'm not an expert, but I imagine when they change sex, their behaviour changes accordingly.
They don't need to understand social constructs - they're changing gender as a result of changing sex.
That’s a stretch. Social constructs are parts of culture. They can be transmitted person to person and they evolve independently of genetics. Is there any evidence that fish have culture? I doubt it.
Look at how men used to dress in Mozart’s time. That was considered the height of masculine fashion. Today a man would have his masculinity questioned for dressing the same way (or otherwise thought of as strange). Nothing about our genetics could explain such a shift in preferences. There’s no reason Mozart-style fashion couldn’t make a return at some point. That is culture. Fish don’t have it, thus they don’t have gender at all.
Many biologists (myself included) don't anthropomorphize animals because it's impossible to objectively quantify things like "culture". So, my opinion is that some fish change sex, and not their gender (because fish don't have genders, which are human social constructs).
Happy to be corrected if I'm off-base. I'm not an ichthyologist.
Patterns of behavior typically tied to one sex or the other. Like doing mating dances or building nests.
Should've looped on the big screens that recent clip of the two whales "mating". 🤌🏼
Link
You can easily find the "first video footage of whales making is actually two males" on your own without me handing you the proverbial fish, friend.
Then there's the eyes of flounders.
