platyfish

The southern platyfish has been released probably due to fish farm or aquarium releases.

The southern platyfish is commonly known simply as the platy (pl.

The variable platyfish is bred commercially for the aquarium hobby.

To test the theory, she and a colleague who had surgical experience attached plastic swords to male platyfish.

A related species, the platyfish, has no swords.

The female southern platyfish's anal fin is fan shaped.

The other species was the southern platyfish; the males are an inch and a half long and lack tail swords.

For the sake of comparison, other male platyfish were equipped with transparent swords, which tests proved the females could not see.

It is, therefore, in the same genus as the Common Platyfish and the Swordtail.

The two species, the southern platyfish and the variatus platy, have been interbred to the point where they are difficult to distinguish.

The northern platyfish (Xiphophorus gordoni) is a species of fish in the Poeciliidae family.

Each sword measured about an inch, to match the platyfish's smaller body, and was colored black and bright yellow, similar to the male swordtail's.

Due to interbreeding with the southern platyfish or "platy", most swordtails in aquaria are hybrids to some degree.

The two species are members of the same genus, but the platyfish is considered more primitive, a kind of living progenitor of the green swordtail.

But when a male platyfish has a sword sewn onto his tail, platyfish females prefer him.

Xiphophorus gordoni (Northern platyfish)

Xiphophorus maculatus (Southern platyfish)

For their research, the scientists are using a cross between two iridescent tropical fish, a platyfish and a swordtail, both of which are only an inch long.

Xiphophorus andersi (Spiketail platyfish)

Xiphophorus continens (Short-sword platyfish)

Xiphophorus couchianus (Monterrey platyfish)

Xiphophorus evelynae (Puebla platyfish)

Xiphophorus milleri (Catemaco platyfish)

Xiphophorus variatus (Variable Platyfish)

Xiphophorus xiphidium (Swordtail platyfish)