# Difference between.....



## Guest (Mar 19, 2009)

hey all,

what exactly is the difference between an Endlers livebearer and a guppy (common or fancy)? from what i've gleamed of google so far this is what i've understood:

1: the tail variation on the actual endler is a double sword tail
2: they prefer higher temps than a guppy

i;ve seen some guppys that look like endlers in coloration but the tails are like fans and not swords. i'm super confused about this. can any one give me the break down between the two?

thanks!

cheers!


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## TheOldSalt (Jan 28, 2005)

Endler's ARE guppies...or at least they used to be.

Endler's are little tribes of guppies which got stranded in isolation from the rest of guppydom and wound up forming little populations with their own limited genepools and characteristics.
Take a bunch of people and scatter them on some little islands, take away their boats, and come back in a few thousand years. What you'll find are several small groups of people which look very similar to each other on their own islands, but different from the folks on the other islands.
That's what happened with the Endler. 

As it happens, the environmental conditions that many of these tribes developed in are very different from the conditions where normal guppies are found, and that has resulted in the Endler's developing traits not common to normal guppies. Their coloration and finnage are different, obviously, but more importantly, the fins & colors of each tribe are fairly distinguished from each other.
SOME endler's have swords or double swords... SOME have yellow tiger stripes... SOME have the bright orange lazy-S pattern n their sides.... at any rate, most of the specimens in each tribe share these traits and do so to the extent that they were thought at first to be distinct species, since normal guppies almost never look alike. Endlers tend to have colors which are much brighter and more vivid than those of normal guppies, but these colors are not well distributed, unlike the way a guppy spreads it's colors all over the place. I predict that someday we might see domesticated endlers that look like modern guppies but with much more intense color.

Guppies will cross with endler's just fine, being the same species. In fact, this crossing has so far resulted in some pretty spectacular new strains. Many more weren't so impressive, however...

So, how to tell a feeder guppy from an endler?
Heh.. well, that requires knowing a great deal about both. Most of the known strains, or tribes, of endler's have distinct characteristics which make them recognizable, and guppies lack these.


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## doggydad38 (Jan 18, 2005)

Endler's Livebearers have been elevated to species status and named Poecilia wingei. It is a very close relative to Guppies and will readily hybridize with them. The type locale is supposed to be a warm lake in Venezuela (can't remember the name off-hand) that is green with algae. The population of this lake is thought to be extinct because of pollution from the nearby town. It's a shame we humans have to destroy what's living in our own backyard. Just my thoughts.
Tony


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## Guest (Mar 21, 2009)

so unless i have an indept knowledge of the strains of endler tribes, i wouldnt be able to know if i've got one of them? or unless there is some sorta book or bible.....  i'm coming across some AWESOME guppys at a new LFS i found recently and this rekindled my passion for guppys that i had when i was a kid......


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## jones57742 (Sep 8, 2007)

TOS:

Thanks for the comprehensive treatise.

A year or so ago I did a ton of research on Endler Guppy's in anticipation of breeding them into the Guppy strain which I am developing
*But*
I had no joy with respect to finding any which I believed to be the "wild Endlers" and which could be purchased and shipped for reasonable cost.

Am I missing something here?




Zakk said:


> so unless i have an indept knowledge of the strains of endler tribes, i wouldnt be able to know if i've got one of them? or unless there is some sorta book or bible.....


No. Just Google for Endler Guppy as I did a year or so ago and you will be able to view a ton of photographs.

Their markings, as TOS indicated, are distinctive from our typical Guppy's.

TR


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## TheOldSalt (Jan 28, 2005)

_P. Wingei_ has been discarded & decommissioned. Endler's are not a separate species. They are just guppies.
They come from several locations, with each tribe dominating one locale.

They aren't so easy to find, especially the pure strains which haven't yet been sullied by crossing with regular guppies, but you can occasionally find them on Aquabid.
Just be aware of the fact that most endler sellers are not selling pure endlers. Look at the pictures before buying.


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## Guest (Mar 21, 2009)

the closest one i've come across to an endler is a female that looks similar to this one and she was a female.....unfortunatly, she wasnt a very healthy one....she was semi flaoting when i found her.....tried to save her cos she looked so nice but....


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## Felicia (Jul 17, 2008)

Too bad taxonomy isn't an exact science. Being a splitter myself, I think Endlers are just different enough that they should have their own species status. But it's not my vote that counts.

Endlers and guppies will hybridize easily. F1 results are spectacular, but F2 and later generations tend to look a lot like feeder guppies unless you know what you are doing.

Swampriveraquatics is working on tons of pure Endler strains and some hybrid strains, too. They are cheaper than a lot of guppies and shipping is cheap. Their customer feedback is excellent.

Edit: Female endlers look a lot like wild guppy females. The one in your picture above is a male.


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## Kurtfr0 (Nov 2, 2008)

Felicia said:


> Swampriveraquatics is working on tons of pure Endler strains and some hybrid strains, too. They are cheaper than a lot of guppies and shipping is cheap. Their customer feedback is excellent.



Amazing website.. Sent them an email.

And zakk go look at tha site. You will Go nuts.


http://swampriveraquatics.com/


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## Guest (Mar 23, 2009)

those endlers are BEAUTIFUL!


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## doggydad38 (Jan 18, 2005)

www.endlersrus.com is a great website and provides excellent info as well as explanations of different classifications of Endler's. Take a look.
Tony


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