Swordtail

(redirected from swordtails)
Also found in: Dictionary, Thesaurus.
The following article is from The Great Soviet Encyclopedia (1979). It might be outdated or ideologically biased.

Swordtail

 

(Xiphophorus helleri), a fish of the family Poeciliidae of the order Cyprinodontidae. It is found in the fresh waters of Mexico and Guatemala. Males are up to 8 cm long, and females 12 cm. The lower part of the male’s caudal fin has the distinctive form of a sword. Swordtails are grayish olive, with a longitudinal red stripe and several shorter reddish bands parallel to it. The females, which are not as brightly colored as the males, are live-bearers. The swordtail is a popular aquarium fish. It hybridizes with the closely related platy (X. maculatus) to form black, red, lemon, mottled red, and other varieties.

REFERENCE

Il’in, M. N. Akvariumnoe rybovodstvo, 2nd ed. Moscow, 1968.
The Great Soviet Encyclopedia, 3rd Edition (1970-1979). © 2010 The Gale Group, Inc. All rights reserved.
Mentioned in ?
References in periodicals archive ?
Other livebearers common in the aquarium hobby are the swordtails and platies of the genus Xiphophorus, including some 17 species from Central America.
The oldest domesticated fishes, and the consequences of an epigenetic dichotomy in fish culture
Crapon de Caprona and Ryan found that female swordtails spent more time on the side of the test tank filled with water that had been inhabited by a male swordtail than on the side filled with uncontaminated water, indicating that the female recognized and preferred olfactory cues given off by the male.
THE EFFECT OF MALE FAMILIARITY ON PROXIMITY TIME IN FEMALE EASTERN MOSQUITOFISH (Gambusia holbrooki)
Prior to 1988, all known populations of the pygmy swordtail fish, X.
Perspective: chase-away sexual selection: antagonistic seduction versus resistance
Male swordtail, Xiphophorus nigrensis, carry one of three alleles at the Y-linked P (pituitary) locus from the father (Kallman 1984, 1989).
An explanation of the high strain diversity of a self-fertilizing hermaphroditic fish
For swordtail fish, the ideal amount of phenoxyethanol was 5 ml/l and 6 ml/l clove oil.
Sedative Effect of Clove Oil and 2-Phenoxyethanol on Marine Clownfish (Amphiprion ocellaris) and Freshwater Swordfish (Xiphophorus helleri)
niloticus), one was accidentally introduced as an ornamental fish (convict cichlid Amatitlania nigrofasciata), and three had been translocated to the reserve (mesa silverside Menidia jordani, porthole livebearer Poeciliopsis gracilis, and green swordtail Xiphophorus hellerii).
Diversity of freshwater fishes in Reserva de la Biosfera Barranca de Metztitlan, Hidalgo, Mexico, and recommendations for conservation
In a rare demonstration of secret messaging in animals, a swordtail fish uses ultraviolet (UV) wavelengths as a private courtship channel, biologists now report.
Fish allurement that predators don't see. (Secret Signal)
The intent of this study is to perform immune analyses via white blood cell counts from the peripheral blood and spleen of Green Swordtails, Xiphophorus helleri, following an immune initiation, along with parasite level counts of Dactylogyrus intermedius as a means of measuring male fitness.
Parasite-mediated sexuel selection of Green Swordtails, Xiphophorus helleri. (Abstracts)
-- Swordtails were likely introduced into the San Antonio River during the mid-1980s as none had been obtained prior to that time (Howells 1992).
New additions and persistence of the introduced fishes of the upper San Antonio River, Bexar County, Texas
Sexual Selection and Swords in Ancient Swordtails. - Diversification in sexually selected traits frequently accompanies speciation and divergence, but the mechanisms underlying the origin of preferences for such traits during mate choice remain poorly understood.
Likelihood of ancestor states in adaptive radiation
(In the case of the former study on swordtails, there is some evidence of vestigial expression of the sword, and this may parallel the duck example [Winquist et al.
Examining two standard assumptions of ancestral reconstructions: repeated loss of dichromatism in dabbling ducks (Anatini)

Encyclopedia browser ?
Full browser ?