Dead, live guppies vie for paternity

Females can use sperm months after mates go belly up

Among wild guppies in Trinidad streams, a female (left) can store sperm from a male (right). In a new experiment, female Trinidadian guppies lived much longer than males and still used sperm left over from the generation of the grandfathers of current males. 

Paul Bentzen/Dalhousie

After death, male guppies can keep on siring offspring because females store sperm for so long.