Incongruence between the sexes in preferences for body and dorsal fin size in Xiphophorus variatus.

Female preference for male fin enhancements in poeciliid fishes may be driven by a preexisting perceptual bias for increased male lateral projection area (LPA). This hypothesis suggests that a male with enlarged body and/or fin size projects a larger image onto the female's retina at a given viewing distance, eliciting a greater sensory and thus behavioral response out of the female than a smaller male. Given the shared sensory/neural systems of opposite sex conspecifics, we might expect the LPA bias to also be present in males of at least some poeciliid species. However, we need not expect congruence between the sexes in the state of the bias over evolutionary time. To examine whether the sexes share a bias for sailfin-like dorsal fins, a trait not present in their evolutionary history, the bias favoring increased dorsal fin size and LPA observed in female Xiphophorus variatus, among other poeciliids, was investigated by testing male preference for dummy females varying in dorsal fin size, body size, and dorsal fin:body size ratio. In three sets of simultaneous choice experiments, males preferred females of larger body size when fin size was held constant and when total LPA was held constant, but showed no preference for larger fins when body size was held constant. The LPA bias is therefore less permissive in males than females with selection favoring a male's ability to discriminate between female body size - an indicator of fertility/fecundity - and fin size, which offers no known fitness benefits.