breeding Intersex guppy?

[Kat_Rigel]

Hi all, I have recently had succes breeding my Ginga Rubra guppies (admittedly accidentally, but Ill take success when it comes! Haha) I now have several big, fat, healthy adult guppies to be the basis of a colony. However, I noticed that one the females has not gotten pregnant and has an unusually shaped anal fin. The coloring clearly indicates this is a female, but the anal fin is long and slender like a male. I was able to get a semi-decent picture but its still difficult to see- but you can clearly see its very different from the smaller male.

Is it common to get intersex guppies when breeding? I am very nervous about culling too much and just ruining everything. But I guess if this one isn't breeding anyway, I don't need to worry. Very interested to hear everyone's insights.

[MattyIce]

In one of the Aquarium Co-op live streams Corey had mentioned that sometimes a male will suppress their hormones or something to keep from coloring up, perhaps related to tank competition.  In suppressing the hormones they grow bigger and look like females, but they are males, the colors will eventually show and because they grow so much larger they tends to rule the tank.

Not sure if that is the exact reason for it, but I had this happen with a Japanese Neon Blue Endler that got to about twice the size of my other male endlers before he started to show his colors.

[Daniel]

And sometimes you can be a little of both. Our local bee professor Dr. Tarpy ID's this gynomorphic honey bee the other day:

 

[Kat_Rigel]

Very interesting! I have never heard of guppies repressing their hormones. I'll have to look up that video!

[MattyIce]

7 hours ago, Kat_Rigel said:

Very interesting! I have never heard of guppies repressing their hormones. I'll have to look up that video!

it was shortly brought up in response to a chat question during a live stream, it might be a little hard to find the correct live stream

I think it was either the live stream from 2 or 3 weeks ago,but i'm not sure, 

[shkote]

I also had a "sleeper male" Japanese Neon Blue Endler. He passed as female for quite awhile. He did finally color up a bit. He ended up being much larger than the other males, and he never got as bright or colorful as the other males. 

 

Those Ginga Rubra guppies are beautiful!

[Kat_Rigel]

Oh my, this thing is going to be an absolute GOLIATH if it turns out male! Haha i was going to ask you if your big endler ever bred, but I suppose that would be pretty tough to figure out.

Interesting that two different people now have brought up Japanese Neon Blue Endlers in their examples. These Ginga Rubra guppies have a very endler-esque appearance and I suspect they have endler genes in there somewhere- I wonder if endlers are more prone to this?

[shkote]

It could actually be more common on the guppy side or just crossing, as Japanese blue neon endlers are actually endler x guppy hybrids if I remember right? Which I think is also the case with Ginga Rubras (wingei x reticulata) though I could be wrong.