Swordtails Poem by gershon hepner

During courtship swordtails that are males
like following the females with a fin
as large as those on yachts tycoons may sail
to lead obliging mistresses to sin,
but female swordtails aren't impressed
by fins when large, preferring smaller ones,
the big ones pestilential as the pest
produced by poets partial to poor puns.

Since female swordtails favor small fins more
than larger ones, what is the rationale
of males who flash their big ones like a bore,
lotharios in their watery locale?
It is a message to the male marines
that they decidedly are dominant,
like male landlubbers wearing tight blue jeans
to prove that they are proudly prominent.

What should we think of female swordtails’ taste
for small-finned males, should we approve their choice,
or pity them for how they chose to waste
the pleasure of big size which should rejoice
their piscine hearts and give them major pleasure
when in the wine-dark sea it makes them come?
Size matters surely, measure comes for measure,
Or so I’ve heard from blondes who are not dumb.

In the Science Times of the NYT on November 7 Henry Fountain writes:

During courtship, a male swordtail swims alongside a female and raises a large sail-like fin on its back. But Heidi S. Fisher and Gil G. Rosenthal of Boston University discovered that in experiments, most females were actually attracted to male with small fins. So why would males go to all the trouble of displaying something that potential mates wouldn't like? The answer, the researchers report in the journal Biology Letters, lies in the effect on potential competitors. Other males become intimidates in the presence of a male displaying a large fin...Swordtails live in close proximity with hundreds of males and females in a small area, so it's worthwhile for a male to raise his fin to keep the competition at bay. Then again, if males with larger fins are more dominant than other males, why aren't the females attracted to them? Although a large-finned male may be more successful in competing against other males, that doesn't necessarily translate into advantages for the female. Male swordtails don't care for the offspring and don't hold territory that might be useful for a female to have. And mating with a more aggressive, competitive male may increase the female's risk of being harmed.

11/7/06