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My little reidi \"sunny\" has been dancing around the tank since this morning. He goes from black to bright white with a black mask, seems to tuck his chin and poke out his chest. Both the reidi and erectus females seem interested, and I not sure which one he is trying to impress!! I keep on thinking he is trying to impress the erectus female, could he have species confusion? Can the two different types mate successfully? He is flirting with both. The reidi female, Cher, follows him around at these \"struting\" events, but he tends to swim over and hitch next to the erectus female.
Either way, it was a very entertaining morning!! It seemed like a normal breakfast time, Sunny stops eating, swims to the back of the tank and turns white and begins struting back and forth. Cher immediately stops eating and follows him around. Then, they would go back to the feeding station and eat a bit, then back to struting. He did this about 5x\’s!!
It was a show!!!Dear Amanda:
Yup, it sounds like Sunny, your young male Hippocampus reidi, is definitely strutting his stuff! You are describing classic courtship behavior, and Sunny is promenading, performing one of the dancelike mating rituals that Hippocampus is famous for. He is indeed flirting with the females, in essence extending an invitation to the ladies to dance with him.
Actually, H. erectus and H. reidi are among the few species that are known to cross breed on occasion. They coexist in parts of their range in the wild, and although it is relatively uncommon, erectus and reidi can hybridize and produce viable young.
Sunny may be flirting with both the females from time to time right now, increasing his chances for success by romancing both the erectus female and the reidi filly at the same time, but it sounds like only Cher, the reidi female, is accepting his dance invitations. So Cher appears to be the receptive female at the moment, and if a mating eventually results, she will probably be the one to give him her eggs, which is what you would expect. (If the female H. erectus dropped a clutch of eggs while in the shipping bag en route, she will not be ready to mate again until the next breeding cycle, which will be about four weeks from when she dropped her eggs.)
Best of luck with your prolific ponies, Amanda! Here’s hoping they produce some healthy broods of young for you before you know it.
Happy Trails!
Pete GiwojnaVERY INTERESTING!!!! I did not know that they could "cross breed"!! I honestly thought he was doing all that work for nothing! It was a GOOD show, and my husband and I were really getting a kick out him! Just out of curiousity, what would you call a reidi/erectus hybrid? "RE-RECTUS" or "ERECTI"? :laugh:
I really appreciate all of your help – I have posted so much in the last couple of days with so many questions and your advice is like GOLD!!!
Thanks,
Amanda
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