Something’s Fishy: Does a male guppy prefer a large female guppy when mating?

Abstract

Research on male guppy mating behaviors led us to the idea that a larger, warm colored female model would be more attractive to said male guppy. We formulated a hypothesis stating: if a male guppy is presented with a standard sized female fish, and a large size female fish, he will display more courtship behaviors towards the larger female. To evaluate our hypothesis we observed the courtship behaviors of a male guppy towards a standard sized female guppy model and a very large size female guppy model. Both of the models were a bright orange color. We found that the male guppy spent most of his time near the standard size female model, but did not show her many courtship behaviors, whereas the male spent less time near the larger size female model, but showed that model the most courtship behaviors.