Guppies are insane.

[dvandom]

This happened to one of our grad students in the research group.

She had these guppies that were even more aggressive about eating their young than most of that cannibalistic species. She decided that the latest batch of babies was gonna get a fair shake, and separated them out into a breeder tank right away. A while later, she (against her husband's advice) decided that the babies were too big to be eaten and put 'em back in the tank.

10 minutes later, all the younglings had been eaten.

5 days later, the last of the adults died from being crammed so full of "too big to be eaten" younglings.

There is now one fish left, the only non-guppy they had, and the fish tank is now the husband's responsibility. :)

Comments

[grant-p.livejournal.com]

You sure those were guppies and not triops? That sounds like my Chirstmas break...

I'm trying again, this time with COVER.

[dvandom.livejournal.com]

Oh, at the same party where I heard the guppy story, I heard about Kansas Prairie Chickens, which you might like. Their mating dance involves utterances that sound like explosions. They call it the booming of the chickens.

[grant-p.livejournal.com]

Until the day comes when environmentalists kick themselves for accidentally protecting a whole species of chicken suicide-bombers who's main goal is to destroy all our endangered eagles.

I've started over, with a much larger tank setup. Today I had four baby triops hatch, ad a few more eggs are wiggling. Maybe now that they are in larger areas and are more closely the same size I'll have better luck.

[z4nd4r.livejournal.com]

I always wondered if guppy behavior was exacerbated through years of bred captivity.

How do they behave--shit, do they even exist still in the wild?

[dvandom.livejournal.com]

I presume that in the wild, the babies run like hell and have an entire ocean or lake or whatever in which to escape. Cannibalism would be a response to being trapped in a situation of presumably limited resources, and they can't tell a tiny trapped pool from a fish tank that gets regular feedings.