Can guppies and endlers interbreed?

[Ellie11]

I have them in separate tanks, but wonder if they would interbreed. My guppies are all males, but I have female & male endlers in with my tetras. The males are shiny beautiful creatures. So far, I haven‘t noticed any endler fry, but I haven‘t owned them very long.
Would the other endlers and tetras eat baby endlers? I have GloFish, and black and white ones of the same type. Believe they‘re called long skirt tetras. Much bigger than the endlers.

 

[GaryE]

Most endler's sold have already been crossed with guppies, and crossing is really a problem.

Skirt tetras are very efficient fry predators. If the tank is small, endlers will eat their young. but in a decent sized single species tank, they generally won't. I tend to see it as a stress reaction to too little space.

 

[Ellie11]

Thanks. I have at least 20 tetras in a corner 44 G with maybe 6 endlers. I have no desire to breed the endlers,

so guess I will leave them in the tank. I would like to pull a courting pair of GloFish & allow them to breed in another tank & return them after eggs are deposited, but so far I’ve seen nothing I’ve read that suggests mating.

Here they are all under a blue LED.

 

[emeraldking]

Endlers and guppies can crossbreed and will have fertile offspring.
Endlers, wildguppies and short finned guppies won't eat their fry from what I know from years of experience. It depends on the kind of large finned guppies wether they'll eat their fry or not.

But it's also true that once guppies are used to very small tankmates, that fry will hardly be eaten by them.

 

[Ellie11]

Thanks for your reply, EKing. And congrats on being a moderator. I remember you from when I was a regular poster here in the past. You are eminently qualified. You bring knowledge, experience and kindness to the job, 3 essential qualities often lacking in part among some mods or the regular posters. EKing rules!

So it appears my boyfriend may not be all that far off when he calls the Endlers the little guppies. I will keep them separate from my male guppies, but I’d be very curious to see the offspring. I have some very pretty boy guppies. Bet they could produce some fine mutts!

 

[Back in the fold]

This guppies and Endlers thing is still not clear to me. When I started out eons ago the guppies looked like what is being called Endler's Livebearer today. Maybe the years have clouded my memory but I do not see a distinction between the two. Will the real Lebistes reticulatus please stand up .

 

[Ellie11]

If I’m reading correctly, Endlers are a different species from guppies. But they can produce fertile offspring. So by definition, wouldn‘t that make them the same species?

 

[Naughts]

This guppies and Endlers thing is still not clear to me. When I started out eons ago the guppies looked like what is being called Endler's Livebearer today. Maybe the years have clouded my memory but I do not see a distinction between the two. Will the real Lebistes reticulatus please stand up .

I agree, fish called wild guppies are like Endlers livebearers, in colour and shape.

 

[Alice B]

OMG. I look up endlers and I used to buy those as "feeder guppies". Now I feel bad

 

[Ellie11]

You’re bad! The feeder guppies I had were not nearly as colorful as the Endlers. They were solid grey and the Endlers have bright metallic markings, the boys, that is.

 

[Naughts]

This answers some questions...

Endler's livebearer gets formal name - Practical Fishkeeping

Endler's livebearer gets formal name

www.practicalfishkeeping.co.uk

but raises a few more!

 

[emeraldking]

Thanks for your reply, EKing. And congrats on being a moderator. I remember you from when I was a regular poster here in the past. You are eminently qualified. You bring knowledge, experience and kindness to the job, 3 essential qualities often lacking in part among some mods or the regular posters. EKing rules!

So it appears my boyfriend may not be all that far off when he calls the Endlers the little guppies. I will keep them separate from my male guppies, but I’d be very curious to see the offspring. I have some very pretty boy guppies. Bet they could produce some fine mutts!

Thank you for your compliment. I really appreciate it.

This guppies and Endlers thing is still not clear to me. When I started out eons ago the guppies looked like what is being called Endler's Livebearer today. Maybe the years have clouded my memory but I do not see a distinction between the two. Will the real Lebistes reticulatus please stand up .

A lot of people mix up wild guppies and endlers by their name. The commercial world made it worse by labeling wild guppies, wildtype guppies and small fancy guppy strains being endlers to make it more interesting. And to make more money out of it. Purely out of marketing purposes.

The main difference between pure endlers and wild guppies is their DNA. When we speak about wild guppies, there are three main wild guppy species:
Poecilia reticulata (formerly known as Lebistes reticulatus and also other former names have been in order).
Poecilia obscura from Trinidad and Tobago.
Poecilia kempkesi from Surinam.

The Poecilia reticulata is the most wide spread wild guppy species. When we discuss locality of a wild guppy species, we call them wild guppy strain. From the former remark of mine, it will make you clear that when we speak about wild guppy, that it could be one of the wild guppy species I've mentioned before. It also means that todays known fancy guppies are not only coming from Poecilia reticulata.
Nowadays, Poecilia wingei (pure endler) has been added to the group of guppy related species. Besides these mentioned species, also Micropoecilia species (which are subspecies of the Poecillidae family and close related to guppies) are added to this list. For DNA technically they aren't guppies but very close related. Nowadays, Micropoecilia species are labeled again as Poecilia species (just like decades ago). Micropoecilia species are:
Micropoecilia picta.
Micropoecilia parae.
Micropoecilia minima.
Micropoecilia branneri.

A questionable case is the Orangline, El Salto. There are two kinds of them. One that looks phenotypically more a Micropoecilia species and one that is phenotypically more a wild guppy. But both are now listed as being a wild guppy.

Claiming that a pure endler has got more of a metallic appearance, doesn't mean a thing anymore. For there are also wild guppies with a metallic shine on their bodies. Having more vibrant colors or metallic shine only tells us that the environment that they live in has got a low predation or just no predation at all. Claiming that a pure male endler has got a different number of fin rays in his dorsal in comparison to a wild guppy, is of no reference anymore.
When it comes to endler hybrids, it's always a matter of time to see how they will unfold in their behavior... more endler or guppy behavior. That's very individual. So, you just can not say that they will behave a 100% like a guppy or endler beforehand.
Wild guppies have the same courtship as wild guppies have. Not comparable to fancy guppies. And nowadays, also endler influence have been used to create new fancy strains. Which can also influence their behavior.

If I’m reading correctly, Endlers are a different species from guppies. But they can produce fertile offspring. So by definition, wouldn‘t that make them the same species?

Nope. That won't make them the same species. They are closely related but have different DNA. And their sexual organs are compatible which makes a natural mating possible. It's a matter of the number of chromosomes to have fertile offspring. An even number will create fertile offspring and an uneven number creates infertile offspring. So, not every hybrid is infertile by all means.

 

[emeraldking]

feeder guppies

Feeder guppies can be all kinds of guppies. So, also fancy guppies. All feeder fish are fish that one will use to feed other fish or other animals. That could be any kind of fish.

 

[AdoraBelle Dearheart]

When it comes to endler hybrids, it's always a matter of time to see how they will unfold in their behavior... more endler of guppy behavior. That's very individual. So, you just can not say that they will behave a 100% like a guppy or endler beforehand.
Wild guppies have the same courtship as wild guppies have. Not comparable to fancy guppies. And nowadays, also endler influence have been used to create new fancy strains. Which can also influence their behavior.

Do you have any articles on how tthe courtship is different for wild guppies, compared to fancy guppies, by any chance? I'm curious now!
Also - I've only kept 'mutt guppies', store bought and farm bred, but a few I got later on, the males and females were much smaller, and had different body markings, and someone here (might have been you! I can't remember) thought they were Endler/guppy hybrids perhaps.

But I didn't see a difference in their behaviour and haven't kept Endlers yet (but want to!) had no idea that Endlers and guppies behave differently? In what sort of ways? Would love an article, or just some examples, if that's okay!

 

[emeraldking]

Do you have any articles on how tthe courtship is different for wild guppies, compared to fancy guppies, by any chance? I'm curious now!
Also - I've only kept 'mutt guppies', store bought and farm bred, but a few I got later on, the males and females were much smaller, and had different body markings, and someone here (might have been you! I can't remember) thought they were Endler/guppy hybrids perhaps.

But I didn't see a difference in their behaviour and haven't kept Endlers yet (but want to!) had no idea that Endlers and guppies behave differently? In what sort of ways? Would love an article, or just some examples, if that's okay!

Pure endler and wild guppy males dance around the female while courting. They can even do that backwards. Fancy guppies don't do that. When it comes to hybrid endlers, it's harder to tell. For what I've already mentioned before, it's a matter of time before you'll see if they'll behave like an endler or like a guppy.

There's also something like a sneaky male. Sneaky males don't court but make advantage of the opportunity to mate with a female when the more dominant males aren't close by harassing her in a sudden (mostly from the bottom of her body).