Guppies Mating: Are Looks Everything?

Abstract

The question we aim to tackle is “why do some guppies attract more mates than others?” Males fall in one of two categories, colored or grey, and we want to know which color combination is most successful in courting a mate. Most studies focused on creating exotic models, but our experiments showed that the guppy spent most of its time looking at its reflection rather than the complex model (Rowland, 1975). This experiment creates a model that mimics the guppy’s appearance. The results show that a guppy is more attracted to a mate that resembles himself.