I've read that they can switch from female to male, but only if the female has never been fertilized. I believe it was in this book: http://www.amazon.com/Swordtails-Platies-Herbert-R-Axelrod/dp/0866220909
Gender Shifting Swordtails
- Thread starter Lansirill
- Start date
gender changes are feasible for egg layers but just seems physiologically impossible for livebearers.
Here I got out the book I was talking about...
"The remaining members of the genus Xiphophorus, namely Xiphophorus helleri, Xiphophorus alvarezi, and Xiphophorus clemenciae, posses no sex chromosomes. Their sex is determined by the autosomes. All of the chromosomes other than the sex cromosomes are called autosomes or body cells. Here the so-called sex factors are spread over many chromosomes. For the formation of the male sex, M factors are needed. It should be noted that this type of sex determination is very unstable and can eaisly be disrupted and influeced by various outside influences." Hope this helps..
"The remaining members of the genus Xiphophorus, namely Xiphophorus helleri, Xiphophorus alvarezi, and Xiphophorus clemenciae, posses no sex chromosomes. Their sex is determined by the autosomes. All of the chromosomes other than the sex cromosomes are called autosomes or body cells. Here the so-called sex factors are spread over many chromosomes. For the formation of the male sex, M factors are needed. It should be noted that this type of sex determination is very unstable and can eaisly be disrupted and influeced by various outside influences." Hope this helps..
It would be neat if this could be reproduced dependably. Having too many fry? Put all your females in a tank together and wait for some to turn into males.. keep repeating until you have nearly all males. Ha.
