She’s a Good Catch: Sexual Preferences of Male Guppies on Female Models with Deeper Bodies

Abstract

For this experiment, we are researching the correlation of sexual preferences of male guppies on 3D female models and their body size. Males are selective when choosing a mate because they look for a female with a high fitness; therefore, we are testing to see if males will select a female with a deeper body. We hypothesized that male guppies will show more signs of attraction to a female with a deeper body than a model with a smaller body depth because having a greater body depth leads to a higher fitness. A female with a deeper body have a higher capacity for having a large amount of offspring. Although our results seem to support our hypothesis, the statistics are not significant. For future research, we would test to see if males have a sexual preference based on the color of female guppies.