Mate choice in X. variatus

Sexual selection has been an important force in the history of livebearing fishes including Xiphophorus. Female mate choice is frequently involved in driving morphological change or maintaining variation in morphology. In this project, the mate preferences of multiple tailspot types were tested using animated playbacks of a courting male. The males in the different animations were completely identical, except for different tailspot patterns that were added using image editing software before animation. This experiment showed that female X. variatus exhibit random preferences for males of different tailspot patterns, suggesting a limited role for female mate choice in maintaining polymorphism in tailspots within populations.