I have seen many posts regarding this common confusion, and even in my quest for endlers I have needlessly driven to pick up false endlers, simply because people don't always know the difference. I hope that this thread makes it clear for you the differences. Wild type guppies, with their spots and splashes of color, do look similar to endlers, and this causes confusion for some. However you will quickly learn to discern the difference. Now you'll know...
Endlers and guppies, though very very similar, are actually different species. However they are close enough to interbreed, and the hybrids are fertile (class K endler). So thus there are three main considerations - pure guppies, pure endlers, and hybrids of the two.
The fancy guppies are most often pure guppies, however some varieties are created by introducing endler genes, and thus they are actually hybrids. Let's ignore the hybrids in fancy guppies for this discussion. Fancy guppies are of course just guppies, however they have been selectively breed to have their dramatic looks. In most instances a quick look at a (male adult) guppy you can tell whether it's a fancy guppy or not. Thus there should be little confusion about them.
When people originally found guppies they were all "wild type", as over a hundred years ago no one was selectively breeding them to create fancy strains. Hobbyists thought they were pretty fish and started keeping them in their aquariums because they were naturally beautiful. It seems today that most people are so used to seeing such un-natural looking guppies that the sight of a "wild type" guppy seems boring, however compare the look of even a simple wild guppy with most other popular fish in aquariums today and I'd argue that even the simple wild guppy is far more lovely than most other fish! Seriously, what is so special about most tetras (other than neons), white clouds, danios, barbs, ottos, etc. Seriously, IMHO, few popular freshwater fish of a similar size can compete with the beauty of even a plain wild non-fancy guppy (let alone a fancy guppy).
These days there are two ways to get "wild type" guppies. Harvesting some directly from lakes, rivers and pond in their native (or introduced) habitats will yield you "wild" guppies. The other way to get "wild type" guppies is by unselectively allowing guppies to breed for a few generations until their genes get all mixed up, and they revert to looking wild again. Feeder guppies are perfect examples of guppies allowed to revert to looking wild. I know people who have large aquariums where years ago they put in some guppies, and today all their guppies look wild. Simply throwing together a bunch of different "fancy" petshop strains together will in a few generations produce wild type guppies (as little as a year). For most of us who would want to enjoy the natural beauty of guppies it is impractical & expensive to get true wild guppies harvested directly from the wild. Occasionally you might find someone selling some on aquabid, but why bother (unless you had a very specific reason) when there is a cheaper and easier way to acquire them... just get some feeder guppies. For 99% of hobbyists they would be relatively undistinguishable, and who really cares?
Side note: There is a little website devoted to wild guppies, really feeder guppies if you will, that is worth checking out at www.wildguppies.com Another website to check out is http://www.aquahobby.com/gallery/e_P...reticulata.php
Endlers and wild guppies do look very much alike, however in general the colors of endlers is much more intense. I like to think of endlers as the livebearer equivalent to neon tetras - bright metallic colors. Guppies are less intense, though still quite lovely. The overall look appears rather similar between endlers and guppies, though there are certain characteristics that are commonly present. Most notably endlers frequently have a "black comma" on their bodies, which you should notice on most endler photos.
<<< I am not yet done writing this post, however need more time to finish it. I will come back later to update this post with the planned information. I'll just edit this post, so come back in a couple of days. >>>
Reply With Quote
Originally Posted by amcoffeegirl
