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I was doing some reading up on wild type guppies and I found this article, I thought you all might be interested in reading it.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/evolution/sex/guppy/low_bandwidth.html

A properly dressed male guppy, with its gaudy blue spots and brilliant splashes of orange, can't help but stand out. But for a fish that spends its life swimming among predators, it seems that good camouflage would have a big advantage over colors that attract attention. If flashiness is a liability, why are these little guys such exhibitionists?

Enjoy

I thought it was interesting that the bright colouration of wild guppies is a result of the male guppy's efforts to catch a female and start reproducing, while on the other hand bright colours are a liability because of predation. Very cool.

BTW, if anyone is interested in the colours seen in wild type guppies, they are commonly labeled as "feeders" for about $0.10 at any decent LFS. Not a bad deal for a very attractive fish once you get them home and healthy again.

A scientific paper along the same lines - PDF

ABSTRACT
Although females prefer to mate with
brightly colored males in numerous species, the benefits
accruing to such females are virtually unknown. According to
one hypothesis of sexual selection theory, if the expression of
costly preferred traits in males (such as conspicuous colors)
is proportional to the male’s overall quality or reveals his
quality, a well-developed trait should indicate good condition
and or viability for example. A female choosing such a male
would therefore stand to gain direct or indirect fitness bene-
fits, or both. Among potential phenotypic indicators of an
individual’s quality are the amount and brightness of its
carotenoid-based colors and its boldness, as measured by its
willingness to risk approaching predators without being
killed. Here, we show experimentally that in the Trinidadian
guppy (Poecilia reticulata) the visual conspicuousness of the
color pattern of males correlates positively with boldness
toward, and with escape distance from, a cichlid fish predator.
Bold individuals are thus more informed about nearby pred-
ators and more likely to survive encounters with them. Mate-
choice experiments showed that females prefer colorful males
as mates, but prefer bolder males irrespective of their colora-
tion when given the opportunity to observe their behavior
toward a potential fish predator. By preferentially mating with
colorful males, female guppies are thus choosing on average,
relatively bold, and perhaps more viable, individuals. In doing
so, and to the extent that viability is heritable, they potentially
gain indirect fitness benefits by producing more viable off-
spring than otherwise.

Last edited by trystianity at 20-Sep-2005 14:04

They sound like cool (& cheap!!) Little fish Thier colours look just as good as fancy strains imo

Thanks for sharing that