A study was conducted on anemonefish fathers (like the Nemo's father from "Finding Nemo"). This study shows that the fish's parenting skills are much like the father of the animated movie. The father fishes care for their offspring so much that they will even care for offspring that aren't his. This study is based on the hormone signals that trigger this caring protectiveness of the fish.
Anemonefish rely on a signaling molecule that is almost identical to oxytocin (the love hormone in humans) to maintain their faithfulness to their offspring. When researchers blocked this hormone, known as isotocin, the dads stopped tending to their young. Next, researchers tested another hormone that affects paternal care, arginine vasotocin. When the researchers blocked vasotocin, the ttreated male fish displayed significantly less aggression than their untreated counterparts. Blocking vasotocin in anemonefish fathers, however, yielded an unexpected result: The dads became even more attentive to their offspring. As University of Illinois graduate student Ross DeAngelis states, "We were surprised by this because these fish display such a high level of parental effort in the laboratory that it's hard to imagine there being an increase. Our hypothesis is that by blocking vasotocin signaling, you're reducing vigilance and nest defense, allowing a greater allotted effort to be directed toward parental care." The reason the father anemonefish are particularly faithful to their mates and offspring is because the father is trapped with them on a single anemone.
The similarities between anemonefish and other species are surprising. There is evidence, for example, that oxytocin also plays a role in human fathering. "There has been a lot of recent research showing that these behaviors -- like aggression or reproduction or parental care -- are sort of ubiquitously distributed across vertebrates, and the mechanisms that promote and maintain those behaviors are similar in all species," DeAngelis said. This research that the paternal instincts of fathers can be increased by blocking vasotocin, could laed the way to increase the parental instincts of human fathers.
Resources:
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/05/170503110741.htm
http://avhs2.ednet.ns.ca/staff/wile/Clown%20Fish%20Anenome.jpg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oztHwnfl-38
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