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Fish Born Gay?


gingerbeer

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My Checkerboard cichlids have some interesting behaviour that has forced a change around of my fish.

I have 3 male and 2 maybe females. The males are so busy displaying and flashing at each other they have no time for the women who are ignored.

hecne I have put two of the young guys in a bachelor pad, and lft hte other swinger alone with the women to see what will happen.

So given John Kerry has said that soem people are born gay - what about fish??? laugh.gif

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  • 3 weeks later...

I have a pair of kribs in my tank at home. The female is turning herself inside-out trying to get some action from the male. Unfortunately, he is absolutely oblivios to her advances - like a blind man in an adult cinema! huh.gif I think he may be batting for the other team!

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  • 3 weeks later...

My Checkerboard cichlids have some interesting behaviour that has forced a change around of my fish. 

I have 3 male and 2 maybe females.  The males are so busy displaying and flashing at each other they have no time for the women who are ignored. 

hecne I have put two of the young guys in a bachelor pad, and lft hte other swinger alone with the women to see what will happen. 

So given John Kerry has said that soem people are born gay - what about fish??? laugh.gif

Dear Stephen,

Well, I don't know if your fish are gay or not, but there is more than ample precedent among dwarf cichlids for both hermaphrodism and transvestism...seriously!

Two published studies that I'm aware of have established that Dicrossus filamentosus is a hermphrodite. In the absence of a male, the dominant female changes sex and is able to successfully sire fry. Once she's changed, however, there's no going back.

Also, when the American ichthyologists, doctors Donald Stewart and Tyson Roberts, scientifically described Nanochromis transvestitus in 1984, they chose the specific name because this species exhibits reversed sexual dichromatism (coloration). In a nutshell, the female wears the male's clothes.

Pretty cool stuff, huh?

All the best,

Randall Kohn

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I am sceptical about the sex change in checkerboards. I had 5 in the tank from a young age. Three turned male. If the sex change theory is true then I would expect only one, possibly two to become male.

All I have read has not documented a change from a confirmed fertile female to a confirmed fertile male.

I suspect rather that a male in females clothing is allowed to fully develop his finnage.

However I may and am willing to be proven wrong.

As for the gay fish, well, they now appear just happy biggrin.gif

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If I recall right lot of the more primitive cichlids where sex differences are hardly noticable, (one example the orange chromide) sexes can be changed. Females have small testes apart from the ovaries and it was recorded that a group of females have laid eggs and fertilised each others' eggs.

Certain fishes are born all females. The most dominant female will turn to male and spawn with all the other females. When the male dies, again the most dominant female will turn into male and start spawning with the females.

Old swordtail females can turn to males as well.

Animals have strong mating instincts and when they are young they often copulate with their own sexes instinctively. I beleive they do not know that is totally gay laugh.gif

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And the in marine environment ( and those that migrtate between fresh and salt) all Barrimundi are borne male, as are coral trout, corination trout and most of the other "trout" from the coral reefs, as well as cod and Lutjenats. Clown fish are borne unisex, it is not an unusual phenomenon in fish.

Alan

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