Barracuda

The Barracuda is a minor but important character in Finding Nemo.

Appearance[]

The barracuda appears to be an aggressive silvery blue fish with a furious-looking face.

Official Description[]

This "sinister killer" is nothing like Bruce and his gang. It is one of the most feared sights in the reef. When it swims in, everyone else swims out. Renowned for its stare-you-out eyes, the Barracuda can scare most small fish to death even before it lays a sharp tooth on them. Marlin's life is changed forever when his wife, Coral, comes face to face with this monster. Coral is so worried about the eggs she has laid nearby that she cannot bring herself to flee home.^[1]

Finding Nemo[]

The barracuda is a predatory fish seen at the beginning of the film invading the reef where Marlin and Coral have made their home. Coral sees her eggs and, ignoring Marlin's warnings, rushes to protect them. Marlin attempts to defend Coral, but he is no match for the barracuda and is knocked back into his anemone unconscious as the echo of its roar is heard. Marlin awakens to find that the barracuda has left from sight. He looks around to discover Coral and all of the eggs were gone. After briefly crying over discovering what happened, Marlin spots one egg (which presumably fell out of the barracuda’s mouth while he was eating the eggs) which later hatches into Nemo whose right fin becomes unusually small due to some slight damage his egg had gained from the barracuda attack. Marlin then cradles the egg, saying that he won't let anything harm him. The barracuda is not seen again throughout the rest of the entire film.

Trivia[]

In the original storyboard of the movie, there was going to be a scene where Coral and the eggs were originally seen inside the barracuda's mouth, but it was later cut from the final film because it would have scared little kids watching the movie.^{[citation needed]}
Despite barracudas and other fish not having vocal cords and as such not being able to produce any sounds, the Barracuda can be heard roaring as it attacks Marlin and Coral.
In real life, barracudas do not eat fish eggs and rarely eat clownfish. They typically eat larger fish.
- They also generally live in open water instead of near coral reefs.
In the 3-D re-release, when the barracuda closes its teeth, its bottom lip is shown.
As revealed through the Finding Dory commentary, one of the writers for Finding Dory wanted the final shot of the sequel to be the Barracuda looking hungrily at the reef right before "The End" appears on the screen. The Barracuda was also originally planned to speak in the sequel, in which it would be voiced by the late David Lander, who also voiced Thumper in the outtakes of A Bug's Life. However, the idea was eventually dropped.
Although Nemo survived the barracuda's attack, his egg was slightly damage, which is why Nemo's right fin is so small.