Yesterday we looked at the piranha which we learned can be vicious, as if we didn’t know that already?!? We also learned that they like to hang out in the rivers of South America.  Today we are going to look at another popular fish that can be found throughout the freshwater rivers of South America.  Don’t worry though, the Guppy isn’t nearly as dangerous as the piranha. In fact, I bet  a lot of you had a pet guppy at one time or another. Let’s see if we can learn something new about them, shall we?

There are about 300 species of guppy and as you know they make a great pet since they are beautifully coloured and are fairly easy to take care of.  In captivity they will often live for 3 to 5 years.  Unfortunately the wild isn’t as easy so their life spans are a little shorter when they aren’t living in a bowl.  Guppies are omnivores and will usually feed on algae, brine shrimp and whatever other particles they find floating in the water column.  Yesterday we learned that even the piranha has predators so I would say it is safe to assume that the guppy also has some natural predators.  In fact, they have quite a few but birds and other fish are their biggest threats. For the record, I would not recommend keeping your pet guppy in the same tank as your pet piranha.

Generally, fish will mate and the female will then deposit 1000’s of eggs somewhere in the water.  If this isn’t true then the caviar industry has a lot of explaining to do.  The guppy though likes to be different and will actually give birth to live young.  This just means that their eggs hatch inside of them and eventually (about a month later) the female will give birth to about 100 cute, little guppies.  Luckily these babies are able to swim, feed and sense danger immediately.  This is obviously a great survival tactic for a little fish.  Okay, I guess we have time for one more interesting fact.  Did you know that the female guppy is able to get pregnant several times from just one mating session.  Could you imagine how surprised you would be if you just gave birth to a 100 kids and a few hours later you are pregnant again.

Thanks for reading!  I will see you all again tomorrow for another cool Wild Fact!