R. Brooks et N. Caithness, DOES A MALES ATTRACTIVENESS TO A FEMALE DEPEND ON HER PREVIOUS EXPERIENCE, South African journal of science, 91(3), 1995, pp. 156-158
Female guppies from a South African feral population display a strong
mating preference for males bearing large areas of orange pigmentation
. We provide substantiation for this in pairwise choice trials. We sho
w that naive virgin females are capable of acting upon their mating pr
eferences despite no prior experience of mature males on which to base
this choice. This is evidence for a fixed internal standard' of prefe
rence. We also show that this standard of attractiveness is modified b
y a female's previous experience.