The fabulous fish guy
When I saw Finding Nemo at the end of last year, I wrote about how impressed I was by its educational qualities. As it turned out, there was accurate biological detail that even I missed. In an article in Nature, they reveal that Pixar employed a fish biomechanicist called Adam Summers to give them lectures on fish locomotion, biology and marine ecology.
The Pixar people were entranced by his description of the reproductive biology of the anglerfish. In this weird deep-sea species, the males are relatively tiny and attach permanently to the females by biting through their flesh and becoming parasiticâor rather symbiotic, since they are donating sperm if nothing elseâon the female and stay with her for their whole life. The animators loved it so much (and who wouldnât?) thatâif you look closelyâyou can see that the anglerfish featured in the film has a parasitic male attached to her side. I didnât see that the first time, so Iâll certainly have to watch it again.
They also asked Summers and a colleague what factual error would distress them most if featured in the film. Summersâ colleague said that he would be really irritated if they featured kelp (a cold water species) in a tropical coral reef. There was a bit of an uncomfortable silence as the animators realised that they had done just that. To their everlasting credit, they painstakingly took all the kelp out and re-rendered, which must have taken them ages. In my experience, very few science or nature documentaries take that kind of meticulous care with the facts, which makes Pixarâs attention to detail even more laudable.
Adam Summers got a credit at the end of the film as âThe Fabulous Fish Guyâ, which makes me insanely jealous. Never mind a Nobel Prizeâif I ever get a credit on a Pixar film, Iâll be a happy little scientist.
Good job we're not all the same!…