Located in Trinidad to the Amazon River delta. They have two distinct morphs, gray and red morphs. Males reaches about an 1-1.2 inches, and females 1.1-1.2inches. They are a type of guppy species in the Micropoecilia subgenus of Poecilia, while being a sister subgenus to Acanthophacelus (Reticulata/Obscura/Wingei). Unlike their Acanthophacelus guppy relatives, Picta’s and other members in the genus Micropoecilia, have a rapidly degrading Y chromosome. To compensate for that the females, X chromosome has twice as many linked genes to it. Meaning the females will pass down her genes to her sons and daughters, while the fathers passed his linked traits to his daughters, and chromosome to his sons. They are slender, with a range of painted orange to gray body color with black markings. They have a short tail fin, and oval shaped dorsal fin. This species truly thrive in brackish conditions. But they can tolerate full fresh, and full salt. Domesticated specimens now can do well in full fresh, thanks to commercial breeding. 

 In my experience, they are tricky, I already lost my first ever colony due to wasting diesease, and dropsy. Even though I’m giving picta’s a second chance i still lost some founder fry after a couple of months to wasting but I think, I got the hang of it, on how much food to give them, and what they prefer to eat. They like green matter with some protein, so I recommended a source of algae for them to graze on, and biomatter/mulm. Some salt in the water goes a long way. From my first colony, the fry I got from them were tiny and skinny they can fit through floating specimen breeding containers, so I prefer a breeder net or a separate tank entirely to grow out fry. This species aren’t prolific breeders, but they make up by how beautiful they look. Keeping this species is not for beginners or intermediate keepers… I still have a hard time with them, it’s sort of a let down as of late I’m down to an adult female and a juvenile sibling that damaged its spine during while they were being shipped to me.I’ll def get more again given the chance. They are my favorite guppy species.

 Picture credits: “Red” Peter Maguire (1&2), “Black” lebendgebaerende.info (3), “Trinidad”Aquarium Glaser (4&5), “Gold/Blonde” AdrianHD (6&7), “Red” Latrell Shemar (8-11), “Red” Thomas Gleim (12&13)

LOTD: Micropoecilia (Poecilia) picta - Swamp Guppy