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So, What Colour Are Your Guppies?

Golden and Gray bodied Guppies

GUPPY COLOURS

There are four main body colours in the Guppy: the Golden, Blond, Albino, and the original, wild, Gray. These are most easily seen in the female.

The Golden Guppy

...or gold-bodied guppy (the reds as shown in my album)is originally the result of a mutant gray guppy in guppy history, which had greatly reduced black pigment by 50%. This uncovered the hidden yellow pigment cells. The golden guppy also appears rather transparent.

The Blond Guppy

Another beautiful mutant, this guppy is similar to the golden guppy but is lighter and more translucent in colour. The blond guppy's actual number of melanin particles is nearly the same as the gray guppy's but they are much smaller, and they cannot disperse their particles the way gray fish can. If you cross a blond guppy with a gray, expect gray Guppies. Blonds are generally not as strong as grays, yet blonds are much more hardy than Albinos.

The Albino Guppy

The 1940's brought about the albino guppy mutant. By definition, these fish have no melanin pigment at all, which accounts also for their pink eyes. When breeding them there are often problems with healthy fertility, good body size, and colour. If you cross an albino with a golden guppy, expect gray offspring.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~Another interesting thing about Colour*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

The skin of a female gray guppy under a microscope will show many hundreds of small black pigment cells called melanophores, which contain melanin. Melanin is a black substance that can concentrate itself in the cell or disperse throughout it. This movement is actually dependent on the physiological state of the fish.

For instance, if the guppy is hovering over a white sandy bottom, it's body appears pale and matches the scenery much like a chameleon. The melanin has simply concentrated itself in the center of the cells. When the fish is resting above a dark bottom, the fish's eyes sense this and send information to cause the melanin to become dispersed in the melanophores, which will cause the fish to appear dark.