The Effect of Female Color on Mating Preferences Amongst Male Poecilia reticulata

Abstract

Poecilia reticulata, guppies, have been a major species of research attention for many years mainly because of their easily identifiable courtship rituals. The research that has been conducted has shown that male guppies prefer females of bright and warm colors because they are easier to see underwater. With this fact in mind, we hypothesis that the male P. reticulata will prefer a yellow female over a control grey female due to her bright colors. In order to test our hypothesis, we measured the amount of time and courtship rituals the male guppies performed towards the two female models, yellow (experimental) and grey (control). Throughout our experiment, we found that the male P. reticulate spent significantly more time and performed significantly more courtship rituals to the yellow model. Further research needs to be conducted on size, other colors, and with real female P. reticulate who are moving throughout the tank.