# Can't tell if girl or boy molly



## wobbles (Jul 4, 2011)

I have a dalmation molly that doesn't seem to have the usually easy to tell male or female fins. It doesn't have the round fin females have, but it doesn't seem to have the modified anal fin that males have. I am unable to put a picture up.

It has two split fins underneath with a sort of wavy/shredded fin close to it. Any ideas?


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## susankat (Nov 15, 2008)

Without a pic it would be hard to tell.


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## Rain (Aug 7, 2011)

wobbles said:


> I have a dalmation molly that doesn't seem to have the usually easy to tell male or female fins. It doesn't have the round fin females have, but it doesn't seem to have the modified anal fin that males have. I am unable to put a picture up.
> 
> It has two split fins underneath with a sort of wavy/shredded fin close to it. Any ideas?


Hi wobbles,

Im not sure if its a male or a female without a pic but if u have other female mollies and if its a male it should try and mate with the female mollies so keep an eye on it and they normally do this sort of dance where they extend their dorsal fin and swim around the female untill they mate(if its a sailfin molly it should be pretty obvious when this happens cause the male has a really tall dorsal fin) or it could be a female that got its fins bitten or torn like mine . If your still not sure i guess you could wait a few weeks and see if it gets fat(pregnant) cause live bearers can usually store sperm for up to 4-6 batches of fry so dont worry if you dont have any males with it.

-Rain


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## wobbles (Jul 4, 2011)

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This is the best picture I could get.I think it is a female though because I put a male molly in the tank with it yesterday and the male tried to mate with it.


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## susankat (Nov 15, 2008)

Looks like a female to me


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## Rain (Aug 7, 2011)

Yeah looks like a female to me since you said the male tried to mate with it and the dorsal fins not that high


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## wobbles (Jul 4, 2011)

Alrighty, thanks everyone.


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## susankat (Nov 15, 2008)

looks pregnant too


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## allllien (Apr 6, 2012)

You can't really see the anal fin/gonopodium clearly enough in that photo to tell, but I'm willing to bet by the thickness of the base of that tail it's actually a male -females usually have a thinner tail base from what I've noticed  My male Mollys often try to mate with other males, so that wont tell you much


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## navigator black (Jan 3, 2012)

I'm with alllien - it has the body shape of a male, and a desperate male molly will try to mate with a snail.


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## majerah1 (Oct 29, 2010)

navigator black said:


> a desperate male molly will try to mate with a snail.



LOL i bet thats a site to see!

It does look pregnant but im not good with livebearers.I like my endlers,easy to tell on those.


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## allllien (Apr 6, 2012)

Livebearers love to eat and will get quite fat if you let them, some males can look like pregnant females which is not uncommon 

I have a male guppy that's the biggest one I've ever seen, he's so big and fat he was mistakenly put in with the females at the shop I bought him from lol. He's bigger than even the biggest female guppy, which I didn't even know was possible lol.


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## navigator black (Jan 3, 2012)

The tail base issue says male, as alllien said. The female has a different shape, due to her having to carry and drop fry. A healthy male has a chunky build and a heavy, muscular chest. 
When breeders play with the forms, one side result can be males with disfunctional gonopodiums. It's worse with the long-finned lyretail swordtail mutations, as a lot of the males have completely deformed reproductive organs. Since the gonopodium's a modified fin, the genes that control fin growth control its shape. Domestic breeders work by the principles of unnatural selection, so you get some strange results.


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