FISHY COURTSHIPS

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 744, 17 August 1929, Page 29

FISHY COURTSHIPS

MALES WEAR GAUDY COLOURS Fishes that had loved one another and mated—and vainly hoped to live happily ever after—were shown to distinguished scientists at the Natural History Museum, South Kensington, London, recently. Some of them were no bigger than small goldfish. They were cyprinodonts, and once lived joyously in the warm fresh water rivers of South America. The males were resplendent little fellows, with gaudily coloured fins as big as their bright bodies. It was with the splendour of those fins that they were wont to lure their shy and much less spectacular sweethearts into their arms, so to speak. Then there were armoured catfishes, also from South America. These were very much bigger, and wore very “fetching” red whiskers! Mr. C. Tate Regan, director of the Natural History Museum, told a reporter that the male fishes of the kinds exhibited indulged very seriously in a form of courtship. He said: “They displayed their beautiful colours and their fine fins and whiskers to the females to win the affections of the latter—just as male birds do. There are hundreds of kinds of fishes living in tropical waters which mate. “In some cases the females are capable of ‘infant care.* They carry their young in their mouths and from time to time let them out for an airing, as it were, and then shut them up again. This goes on until the young ones are able to take care of themselves.”