DANCING GUPPIES

      When I was about ten years old, I enjoyed six guppy fish [ two females and four males] in a one-gallon,  glass jar that I put on an end table, under a table lamp.  I put a clump of algae strands in the jar with the guppies to make their temporary home more natural.  I often sat and watched those beautiful, lively guppies, especially at night when the lamp put abundant light into the water-filled jar.  

     They were not in that jar long, however.  I put them in a five-gallon aquarium with the algae strands and placed the whole business on that same end table under the table lamp.  There, of course, the guppies had more room, and probably were happier.    

     Those small fish were always swimming about, and attractive.  But the most interesting aspects of their activities were, and still are, the males' courtship dances and the females' giving live birth.

     The one-inch males in that jar, so many years ago, had black, red and orange spots on their flanks.  The females were about one and a half inches long and plain, light-brown, which camouflages wild guppies in the ponds and creeks where they live in the wild in northern South America. 

     The male guppies in my first aquarium of them were in almost constant pursuit of female guppies, as male guppies always are, to mate with them.  Each male guppy's dancing courtship involved sweeping in front of a female, and stiffly and rapidly shimmering his whole body while swimming back and forth a bit in front of her to show off his bright colors and health.  Then he darted to her side and quickly swung his modified anal fin forward, his gonopodium, to press it against her to pump sperm into her.  Females can store sperm for months.  And the males' courships were, and are, always intriguing to see.

     After up to 30 days of pregnancy, each female guppy gives live birth to a few to up to 50 light-brown young per brood, depending on her age and size.  Each female potentially can give birth to several broods each year, for the couple of years she lives.  

     The young emerge, fully formed, from their mothers, one or a few at a time, and swim to protection.  Those youngsters are on their own from the moment of birth, and some of them are eaten by adult guppies, and other fish, if they are present.  But surviving babies grow rapidly, and, within a month are almost mature and ready to breed.

     Guppies now live in many tropical wild areas across much of the globe, where they control mosquito populations by ingesting mosquito larvae.  They also adapted to living in various-sized aquaria where they benefit people.  Guppies are beneficial in elementary schools for learning about nature and reproduction, and retirement villages for aesthetics. 

     Guppies are lovely, intriguing fish that fare well in aquaria.  They are so companionable, and interesting to watch, particularly when courting and giving live birth.   

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