Sexual Selection Preferences of Male Guppies on Red Pigmented Female Models

Abstract

 When choosing mates, guppies decide off of visual characteristics such as color. Guppies appear to have a preference for carotenoid pigments including yellow, orange, and red. Therefore guppies are more attracted to colors with longer wavelengths, thus they will be most attracted to the color red. This attraction is shown through swimming around the fish and biting at the tail. We compared red 3D models to white, purple, and orange with two models inserted at a time with a male guppy. We observed the guppy’s behavior to see which pigmented female he preferred. The male guppies appeared to be more attracted to the red 3D model, thus male guppies are more attracted to colors with a longer wavelength. For our one factor ANOVA, we failed to reject the null hypothesis with the guppies performing courtship on only red models.