Reproduction
Gobiodon sp. start life as females, and are bi-directional protogynous hermaphrodites, meaning that when paired up, if necessary, one changes sex to form a breeding pair. In the case of two females forming a pair, the larger of the two becomes male, and in the case of two males, the smaller changes sex to become female. The only time a male is smaller than a female is when a small male is placed in the same coral as a large female.
The eggs are laid in circular bands around coral branches in masses of up to a thousand. The male will immediately fertilize them and guard until hatching, about five days later. At about day 33, the fry undergo metamorphosis and begin to settle. Coloration can be seen at about day 40.
Read more about this topic: Yellow Clown Goby
Famous quotes containing the word reproduction:
“Although Samuel had a depraved imagination—perhaps even because of this—love, for him, was less a matter of the senses than of the intellect. It was, above all, admiration and appetite for beauty; he considered reproduction a flaw of love, and pregnancy a form of insanity. He wrote on one occasion: “Angels are hermaphrodite and sterile.””
—Charles Baudelaire (1821–1867)
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“Were I called on to define, very briefly, the term Art, I should call it “the reproduction of what the Senses perceive in Nature through the veil of the soul.” The mere imitation, however accurate, of what is in Nature, entitles no man to the sacred name of “Artist.””
—Edgar Allan Poe (1809–1845)