Fish Tale: The Attraction of Male Guppies to a 3D Artificial Fish Model with Masculine Characteristics

Abstract

Guppies are a type of fish that vividly display their mating behaviors and sexual preferences, making them easy to study and observe. Many physical factors are commonly more attractive to male guppies than others, such as bright colors, body size, and fin size. Our experiment was focused on the sexual selection of male guppies and we added the novel aspect by using an experimental fish model with a 50% larger anal fin, which is a specific male characteristic. We hypothesized that male guppies would not display mating behaviors when placed in a tank with the fish model that had a 50% larger anal fin due to that being a characteristic that is almost exclusive to males. The results we obtained did not support our hypothesis and showed that the male guppies actually preferred the experimental model over the control. This led us to speculate about the possibility of male guppies being more attracted to other fish of the same sex that exhibit masculine characteristics.