Clown
fish
Living among
anemone
(fish-eating animals that look like undersea flowers and
have hundreds of poisonous tentacles), these small fish
are protected to its poison. It is covered with a mucous
that protects it from the poison. The anemone protects
the Clown fish from most predators, who know not to go
near the anemone's tentacles. The clown fish helps the
anemone by cleaning it (as it eats detritus) and perhaps
by scaring away predators of the anemone.
Body:
It
is a brightly-colored orange fish and has three white
vertical stripes and its rounded fins have black
margins. The Clown fish is about 2 to 5 inches (5 to 13
cm) long.
Habitat:
This
fish lives on the sea floor in the middle of anemone
tentacles living in the warm waters of the tropical
Pacific
Ocean, the Red Sea, the Indian Ocean, and Australia's
Great Barrier Reef.
Foot:
This
fish eat the anemone's waste. It waits until the anemone
hunts zand eats a fish, and then helps itself to bits
that the anemone leaves uneaten. It also eats dead
anemone tentacles and plankton.
