New Ornate. Sex?
- Thread starter teohha
- Start date
Hello,
back to your question about the thickness of males or females ...
Especially ornates are tending to get thick ones from case to case - other species like senegalus or palmas polli are showing an obvious difference: Females are much thicker.
Male ornates are showing a territorial behaviour ... and they are showing no fear, even if the other bichir is much bigger! So my male ornate is less nice to my teugelsi that is more than double-sized ... but bichirs are well-sheltered against bites due to their ganoid scales - well armored!
There are many statements about the sexual maturity of ornates. Mine is about 10+ inches long and is searching contact to the females in my tank ... but he isn't able to show the typical behaviour of courtship (head-banging, folding the anal fin). But it seems that it will not take long to get prepared for real courtship ...
Greetings
Uwe
back to your question about the thickness of males or females ...
Especially ornates are tending to get thick ones from case to case - other species like senegalus or palmas polli are showing an obvious difference: Females are much thicker.
Male ornates are showing a territorial behaviour ... and they are showing no fear, even if the other bichir is much bigger! So my male ornate is less nice to my teugelsi that is more than double-sized ... but bichirs are well-sheltered against bites due to their ganoid scales - well armored!
There are many statements about the sexual maturity of ornates. Mine is about 10+ inches long and is searching contact to the females in my tank ... but he isn't able to show the typical behaviour of courtship (head-banging, folding the anal fin). But it seems that it will not take long to get prepared for real courtship ...
Greetings
Uwe
uwe;3815712; said:
i couldnt agree more with this sentense. absolutely well said.
Anyway, to answer TS question, yes, its the most straightforward way to ID bichirs gender, but it has to depend on age and size too.
Because a female look-alike anal fin may evolve to a more rounded anal fin (which is a male) when they grow larger. Not saying that they had changed sex, but they had actually matured and the anal fin are developed to its own gender.
