It has babies, not eggs
Guppies give birth to live young, twenty or more at a time, every month.
The aquarium · A little time each day
Guppy
Tropical fish · from South America and the Caribbean
A tiny silver fish. The male has a huge, fan-shaped tail splashed with orange, yellow, blue and black.
- Size
- 3 to 6cm long
- Lives for
- 2 to 3 years
- Suits
- Beginners with a small heated tank
Darts after you, tail flickering. Move your pointer and see.
Good to know
Six things about the guppy
Named after a vicar
It is named after Robert Guppy, who sent some from Trinidad to the Natural History Museum in the 1860s.
Every tail is different
No two males have quite the same pattern.
The millions fish
It breeds so fast that it is nicknamed the millions fish.
It eats mosquitoes
It has been released round the world to eat mosquito larvae and help fight malaria.
Plain females
Females are bigger, grey and plain. They choose the brightest males.
The real thing
Photos of the guppy
Photos are from Wikimedia Commons, used under the free licences shown. They have been resized, and cropped where they appear in link previews.
Looking after one
Keep a small group in a heated, filtered tank of 40 litres or more with plants. If you keep both sexes, expect a great many babies.
Before you get one
Guppies are hardy, colourful and lively: the classic first tropical fish.
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