Talk:Guppy

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment

This article is or was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment. Further details are available on the course page. Peer reviewers: Nc111.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 22:52, 16 January 2022 (UTC)

"adaegus" ? ? ?

What does "adaegus" mean? The article defines the guppy as "a small adaegus member of the Poecilidae family." But I cannot find any definition of the term "adaegus" in my Werriam-Webster Webster's Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary, or in the several online dictionaries that I've checked. I don't think it's appropriate to define the guppy in terms that aren't found in standard collegiate dictionaries. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Eric Alan Isaacson (talk • contribs) 18:31, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

Perhaps that's because aedeagus is spelled incorrectly; You can find the Merriam-Webster entry @ https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/aedeagusSRocha10 (talk) 19:33, 22 February 2024 (UTC)

Size of guppies

I have mature males that are 1.5cm to 3cm and mature females that are 2cm. I seen huge females that were well over 7cm. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.31.16.170 (talk) 14:31, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

Domestication

Are guppies generally considered domesticated? If so, could someone add a note to that effect on the page? (to solve a dispute on the Domesticated Animals list, only critters with the word "domestic" or "domesticated" on their page are being counted as "truly" domesticated...) Tamtrible (talk) 17:57, 16 August 2012 (UTC)

Yes, we need a ruling on whether this is a domesticated animal to improve the List of domesticated animals. Right now it's in the "iffy" column, but is it WP:SKYISBLUE enough to give this non-iffy, first list status there? They are so distant from their wild ancestors it's hard to believe we can't cite this. Chrisrus (talk) 01:47, 21 September 2012 (UTC)

Life in the wild?

This reader was unable to find in this article really any information at all about their lives in the wild. Are there no studies about wild guppies that are worth mentioning? The article kind of implies that guppies still live in various places around the Carribean basin, is that true? Thank you for time. Chrisrus (talk) 22:37, 18 August 2012 (UTC)

Ecology and Behavior

It appears as though this section has been vandalized. The aquarium escaping bit is flagrantly wrong. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 131.123.61.122 (talk) 20:47, 6 May 2013 (UTC)

Behavior edits

Hi! I am editing the behavior section of this article as a part of a class project! (Behavioral Ecology FL2013, Wash U) I welcome any questions and comments!

Allasse0927 (talk) 22:17, 10 October 2013 (UTC)

General comments

1. Support by citation needed -Under the multiple mating section, the sentence saying 'second male gains more paternity..." needs support.

2. Diet could be a separate section from behavior -Diet can be a large section like behavior, but I think foraging part of this section can stay under behavior since it is classified as behavior. -After listing the potential food source for guppies, it says 'and others.' This is ambiguous. It needs to be clarified (i.e. other fish, other plants. etc.)

3. Life history patterns section can be disintegrated -The information under this section seems to be a merge of information from different sections. So I think pieces of information in this section can be taken and be distributed to appropriate sections. For example:

    Development(This section can be made and more information can be added): bit about baby guppies
    Reproduction: Paragraph about how male and female guppies in high-predation regions mature and reproduce fast. This info can also go on 
    the predation section.
    Avoiding Predation (I think this heading can be changed to just 'Predation' to make it more general): segment about high mortality

Jyn0309 (talk) 22:54, 9 October 2013 (UTC)

The lead section is concise and informative. It serves as an introduction to the fish, however I would not say it serves as an introduction to the article itself. I say this because there is a bit of information that are tangent like and is not needed, especially at the end of the paragraph. For example, there is no whole section regarding a Guppy’s fins, yet detail is given regarding them. This makes it seem redundant.EmmaGreene22 (talk) 23:43, 27 January 2024 (UTC)

Suggested Edits

This article is well written, but it could use some more information in some places. One section that would benefit from adding more information is the physical description. The only information given on this subject is the size, and I would recommend adding more like the colors found and some other prominent anatomical features. The author could also include information pertaining to some other fishes that the Guppy is related to. Also, in the “Genetics” section of the article, the author listed two other strains of the Guppy that have been produced. Perhaps the author could add a statement or two about each one indicating how it is different. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Gopara (talk • contribs) 04:52, 10 October 2013 (UTC)

Peer review

General suggestions:

• Make your language more concise and technical.

• Repetition and unnecessary language are possibly the weakest elements of this article. I would focus on improving this

• It is unnecessary to talk about specific experiments. Instead, simply discuss the results and conclusions of the experiments and cite accordingly.

• Do not say "in an experiment"

• Fix grammatical mistakes
• Use present tense!
• Add more hyperlinks. These act descriptively while allowing you to avoid extraneous description, which only serves to clutter your article
• Improve section titles and organization
• Fix the order of sections to reflect other GAs. See mola mola or frilled shark.

Specific suggestios:

• Taxonomy

• Consider expanding, if possible.
• "Tiny fish" is somewhat subjective. "Small" is sufficient.

• Distribution

• Consider expanding, if possible

• Mating choice

• Do not use "In an experiment." "It has been observed" works well.
• Much of this information is repeated in "Avoiding predation." Consolidate

• Multiple mating

• The second sentence should not have subjective language like "benefits ... for males are obvious." This must be changed
• Do not use "in an experiment"

• Avoiding predation

• Many grammatical mistakes
• Much of this information is repeated in "Mating choice." Consolidate

• Predator inspection

• Clean up language
• It is largely unnecessary to explain a hyperlinked term (specifically tit-for-tat here)
• Break into 2 or more paragraphs (probably 2)

• Diet

• Language here is overly simplistic
• Unnecessary reference to specific areas in Trinidad (i.e. Nanjaro, Lower Tacariqua)
• Hyperlinks. Add them.
• The second sentence of the third paragraph makes no sense.
• The fourth sentence of the third paragraph is very poorly worded
• Do not use "in an experiment"

• Life-history patterns

• Perhaps improve the title ("Lifecycle"?)
• Consider relocating this to earlier in the article, as it is general/nonspecific to behavior
• Most of this information is repeated in "Reproduction." Consolidate

• Variations

• This can probably be combined with the above section

• Reproduction

• This section needs very heavy modification
• Much of this information is repeated in other sections. Sorting this information into those sections would be advantageous
• Aquarium advice should be removed
• This section should probably only include reproductive behavior of the guppy, not body size, male/female/juvenile characteristics, etc.

• Once fixed, it can also be put under behavior

• Lacking in citations. This will likely not be a problem when the section is gutted of irrelevant information

• Genetics

• Section is of questionable importance. Consider removing entirely.

• In the aquarium

• Consider making the executive decision of removing this section entirely
• If you decide to keep it, remove subjective language and uncited claims

Bakerb4379 (talk) 06:21, 10 October 2013 (UTC)

Males' appearance by geographical location

I recall reading about some research which found that higher altitudes have fewer predators and therefore males can afford to either be brighter coloured or have more spots or both -- I forget which. That seems like a good addition to the discussion of male colour and predation. It's described in layman's terms in The Beak of the Finch by David(?) (& Rosemary) Grant, as a kind of appendix. Monado (talk) 21:07, 26 March 2014 (UTC)

Misnamed Predator

Shouldn't the name of one of its predators be changed to: Prochilodus hartii unstead of Rivulus hartii?

138.229.246.211 (talk) 00:54, 28 May 2015 (UTC)

Rivulus hartii was promoted to a separate genus as Anablepsoides hartii in 2011. I'll change the name in the article. — Huntster (t @ c) 02:18, 28 May 2015 (UTC)

Suggestions for Improvement

•Introduction

  •Its mentioned in the beginning of the article that the difference between male and female guppies is that females are duller in color, do the females have differences in their fins?

A section about sexual dysmorphism is missing in this article, that's true. Sexual dysmorphism in guppies: size, color, behaviour, fins shape, and gonopodium. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.91.248.85 (talk) 10:16, 31 December 2018 (UTC)

•Life cycle

  •What are some examples of consistent differences in the populations?

•Senescence

  •Why do guppies from low predation habitats not suffer increased mortality until 16 months? 
  •When explaining how guppies have a longer lifespan in high-predation environments, mention maybe some adaptions they developed to achieve this. This will make it clearer instead of just saying they “have longer lifespans because their reproductive lifespans are longer”. 

•In the aquarium

  •For this section it is mentioned that Guppies should not be kept as a single fish because they will shoal, but are there any negative affects for this inside a aquarium since they won’t be in the wild? (spelling error here, Guppys should be spelled Guppies) 

It's not scientific, but only one guppy tends to be a lot less active, like a depressed fish. It's only observation, and as it's observation, it's maybe not scientifically objective, but it's widely admitted. The article mixes wild guppies and aquarium guppies. As far as I know, guppies always shoal in an aquarium. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.91.248.85 (talk) 10:16, 31 December 2018 (UTC)

Nc111 (talk) 00:24, 1 February 2016 (UTC)

Important info missing.

"The gestation period of a guppy is typically 21–30 days, varying considerably."

It means nothing without mentioning the temperature. And the sentence is mute about the factors that make it "warying considerably".— Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.91.248.85 (talk) 10:16, 31 December 2018 (UTC)

solved?

I added temperature info and references to this text. Carcharias taurus (talk) 18:28, 26 December 2021 (UTC)

Dubious

Senescence means to grow old, and the morbidity linked with old age, it's not about predation. It's about abnormal things physiologically, mentally, behaviourally, that happens to animals growing old. For instance, a cat with arthritis, it's senescence. It's not linked with predation. 6 months of age is definitedly not senescence, except if the animal is growing old prematurately or has prematurely failing organs, like an old fish.— Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.91.248.85 (talk) 10:16, 31 December 2018 (UTC)

I have to agree, I have added the {{dubious}} tag to this. What the linked study showed was:

Prior work on the evolution of post-reproductive lifespan has been dominated by speculation and correlative analyses. We show here that this component of the life history is accessible to formal study as part of experiments that quantify the different segments of an individual's life history. Populations of guppies subject to different mortality pressures from predation evolved differences in total lifespan, but not in post-reproductive lifespan. Rather than showing the direct effects of selection characterizing other life-history traits, post-reproductive lifespan in these fish appears to be a random add-on at the end of the life history. These findings support the hypothesis that differences in lifespan evolving in response to selection are confined to the reproductive lifespan, or those segments of the life history that make a direct contribution to fitness. We also show, for the first time, that fish can have reproductive senescence and extended post-reproductive lifespans despite the general observation that they are capable of producing new primary oocytes throughout their lives.

Probably needs rewording. - Chris.sherlock (talk) 03:27, 6 May 2020 (UTC)

Sources

The guppies temperature and water quality is taken in a book "aquarium for Dummies", it would be good to have science papers about that, since every book and internet site, even the most popular and trusted, all gives different temperatures, etc...

"Dropping a number of two to 200 fry at a time"

The site that is mentioned is not a research paper. I had several times seen very young ffemales with only 1 fry dropped at a time. So I don't think it's a scientific observation. The article should avoid number if it's not scientifically demonstrated, or introduce "approximately" or something like that.— Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.91.248.85 (talk) 10:16, 31 December 2018 (UTC)

Mating and Reproduction Evaluation

Overall this article seems relatively well developed with a generally appropriate outline. However, the writing style can be hard to read at times and phrasing could be more concise. Additionally, there are parts that have some jargon that would be unfriendly to a lay-person or seem like they may be close-paraphrasing results from a paper. The mating section dives right into specific details of the mating system while overlooking important background information that would be helpful to readers. For instance, the section would benefit from explaining if breeding is seasonal, if there are any courtship rituals or direct competition between males etc. Sometimes this article references ideas but doesn't fully explain or introduce them. For instance, the inbreeding avoidance section states that there are numerous pre-copulatory avoidance mechanisms but doesn't list or explain what they are. Similarly, the discussion of orange spots in male guppies could be reorganized for coherence. I found the reproduction section easy to follow, however a lot of the reproduction information would be helpful to know before reading the mating section. Perhaps it would have served the article better to make reproduction the broader heading underneath ecology and behavior and make mating behavior section as a subsection within it.

These sections seemed to be well-cited, primarily referencing peer-reviewed articles, however, most seem to be relatively old so It would good to incorporate any significant new findings from the last few years. The content also seems unbiased (although I'm not sure what biases you can have related to guppy reproduction) and effectively used links to other articles so it was easy to find more information. Finally, the pictures and videos were effective aids although more impactful images could probably be found for the mating section. Cat&Donkey (talk) 21:10, 3 February 2021 (UTC)

This section was well done however it could be improved by adding more detail about the logistics of guppy reproduction.Curlygirl897 (talk) 01:45, 30 August 2022 (UTC)

There are a few technical words that could have be linked to other Wikipedia pages such as “fitness”, “flank”, “courtship behavior”, “sperm-storage”, and “hybrids” to facilitate reader understaing of such terms. Huginnscientia (talk) 04:04, 30 August 2022 (UTC)

The reference for the hybrid guppy male fish being sterile is from an article from a cancer research journal and it cannot be accessed to verify. Nica88 (talk) 04:21, 30 August 2022 (UTC)