Female guppies risk their lives to flee sex harassment

Melbourne, Aug 9 : Researchers at Bangor University in Wales say that females among a fish species called the guppy sometimes go to great lengths, even putting themselves at the risk of death, to avoid sexual harassment by the opposite sex.

The researcher duo-Safi Darden and Darren Croft- looked at 240 wild guppies-120 large females, 60 small females, 60 males-in Trinidadian river.

Four zones were created subject to varying degrees of danger from fish-eating predators.

"In the presence of males, females actively select areas of high predation risk but low male presence, and thus trade off increased risk against reduced sexual harassment,'' the Daily Telegraph quoted the researchers as saying.

The study is published in the British Royal Society's Biology Letters.

ANI