The Snack That Smiles Back: Tracking Male Poecilia reticulata Attraction to Different Colored Females

Abstract

Guppies are an aquatic animal that, like many other animals, have influencing factors in mate selection. In this experiment we will be exploring males guppies' attraction to different colored female guppies. For the experiment we used all small females in the colors, true orange, true purple, and warm grey. We hypothesized that the male guppy would be most attracted to the true orange female guppy due to its bright color. We collected data from 20 trials that were five minutes long each. The trials were run with model stimuli fish of each color in a 38L tank, split into three sections, with one male guppy as the test subject. Our results showed that the male guppy spent the most time with the true orange model. but performed the most courtship behaviors to the true purple model. This study shows how the color of female guppies affects male attraction; this research can be used in the future to help provide understanding into the study of genetic variation and lack of speciation in guppies.