Are Male Guppies Attracted to Bright-Colored Mates?

Abstract

Past research on guppies, Poecilia reticulata, has found that female guppies tend to prefer brightly colored males over other colors and male guppies are attracted to larger females that will lead to their increased fitness. Since it has been heavily researched that male guppies prefer larger females, the purpose of our experiment was to test the effects of color on sexual selection by males. Our choice in color comes from information about female mating preference to determine if the male guppies will prefer the same colors. Over ten trials the guppies spent very little time with our brightly colored model and a substantial amount more with the neutral-colored model even though no mating behaviors were observed. The results of our experiment suggest that the bright colors did not attract the male guppies and neither model prompted the display of courtship behaviors.