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does a guppy have a tongue?

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4.1K views 5 replies 5 participants last post by  hawkraven  
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#1 ·
I am seeing a behavior I have never seen before, but, being fairly new to the hobby, i thought someone here might know..

I have a 15 gal tank with one male and 8 female guppies. 2 cories and a pleco.

Plants and fish are doing well and just today one of the females started to give birth.

I installed a divider and moved the babies as they are born into the smaller side and they are doing fine.

My question:

One of the females. who is VERY pregnant is moving something in and out of her mouth very quickly. At first I thought it was a tongue, but then I've never seen a guppy with a tongue before. She's doing it about 3 times per second and seems to stop it every once in a while to "chew" and then continues.

I thought perhaps she ate one of the babies and it got stuck and she's trying to regurgitate it.. and the "tongue" she shows is the baby's tail?

She's been doing this for 20 minutes now and doesn't seem to be hunting for food, but just stays still in one spot and continues this behavior.

The "tongue" she sticks out is about 1/8 inch long and if whitish/opaque in color.

I wish my camera had a close-up lens, I'd film it for you...

Anyone know what this is all about?

Thanks
 
#3 ·
I believe guppies do have tongues as well as teeth, so what you saw could have been the guppy chewing something as you thought. From the research I have done, they are a member of the Pike family and Pike definitely have teeth! I may be all "wet", but there you have it! I am looking forward to hearing other opinions!
 
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#4 ·
I believe they have tongues, but not ones they can stick out. They have teeth on them, and on the roof of the mouth.
What you describe is a guppy that has bitten off more than it can chew. I doubt it was a fry as they are pretty small and apparently easy to munch on (unless being really gravid is compressing her throat/stomach). They'll spit out things they find that are too big, unless they really like them, in which case what you saw is the standard behavior.
 
#5 ·
My guess would be she was eating either her fry or another fish's fry in the tank.
 
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