Sexing Zebras

[Andrew]

Help sexing this group of zebras;

Edit;
I tried cropping the image a bit and enlarging it to get a better close up of the fish;

 

[Andrew]

This is what i think the sexes are, but i am not positive;

Top Left - Female
Top Right - Male
Bottom Left - Male
Bottom Middle - Female
Bottom Right - Male

 

[thegeeman]

I am pretty much known as the Hypan sexing master Andrew so I will give it a bash:yes:B-)

Top left Female the rest male

Cheers

thegeeman

 

[SmithRC]

I'm with Gee on this one - looks like a lot of males with top left being a female.

 

[st24rsap]

yep i agree with Russ & Gee. 1 female 4 males

 

[scatz]

as above

 

[Andrew]

Thanks for the replies

 

[Rabbit]

As above.

 

[Irene0100]

gosh, I am hopeless - I would have suggested all male appart from top right which is a plumper girth. All seem to have 'pointy' faces of males.
bottom left looks to have some hair on pectorals whic whould suggets male too.
So what is the visual clue I am missing on the top left?

 

[Rabbit]

My reasoning would be that males have in general larger heads, where the top left has a thin head at the same length as the rest.
If you cross refference the head shape with the odontodes on the others there is a ratio of 1/5 and knowing males grow odontodes you can assume the odd one is female.

 

[Andrew]

McEve's article on Zebras has a great section on sexing zebras Hypancistrus zebra (L046) Zebra Pleco by McEve

It explains it well.

 

[Andrew]

I got a hold of another couple of pictures;

I think this is the two possible females.

Group shot;

 

[Andrew]

I think the two fish in the first photo look female, dos anybody agree, or disagree ?

 

[SmithRC]

I'd say the top one is male and the bottom one female... but I'm actually slightly leaning towards a sub male....

Dont panic though - I had a group ID'd as 5 males - I've got 2 spawning females in the group.

 

[Rabbit]

If you can get a ventral pic of the 2 you suspect of being female i could give you a deffiante answer, the pics will have to be quite clear though.

 

[Andrew]

Thanks Rabbit
But i have been posting the pictures for somebody else, the fish are not for me.

 

[N2Biomes]

I'd say the top one is male... but I'm actually slightly leaning towards a sub male....

That's what I thought when I looked at the first close-up, that the lower right side plec is a snub-nosed male...

 

[Andrew]

N2Biomes
I think Russell meant sub-dominant male.

 

[SmithRC]

yep. none of them look like tbey have snubnoses to me.

 

[scatz]

def no snub noses there, they all look in great shape.
lets hope your friend gets them breeding soon