Pregnant Goldust Molly

Question
Hey, Ron... I added three goldust mollies to my freshwater tank about 2-1/2 weeks ago. One of the females was obviously pregnant. Yesterday, I saw what I think is a baby molly hiding in the plastic plants. Then in the evening, I saw a teeny-tiny fry that evaded me.

Do mollies have their fry one at a time over a period of days? Or did she have all of her fry at once and only these two survived? One is obviously much older than the other.  Or else someone else had babies.

Why would the pregnany molly still have a gravida spot if she had her babies? Or could she be clogged up?

Any help and or advice would be welcomed.

John

Answer
Hi John,
 The amazing thing about live bearers is that they can mate once and use the sperm for many batches of kids.  So, after they have mated once, they are pretty much always gravid.  So, you can expect to see little mollies on a very regular basis.
In fact, livebearers exhibit what is called superfoetation, which basically means that they have multiple batches of kids developing at different stages inside the female at any one time.  It's truly remarkable.

-- Ron
  rcoleman@cichlidresearch.com
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