Ap. cacat. male/female identification

[Astrid]

Hello, I may be having a silly question, as I am not sure about the gender of my mature ap. cacatuoides. I bought a pair long time ago and I had a lovely male which however died in a few months. The female kept growing and hunting shimps, so she is very colorful, but also large. Till now I really thought it is a female, but I am not sure, as it is larger than a female (app 4-5 cm) and is very colorful. However, it doesnt have such large first stripes of the dorsal fin as males do, so I kept saying that it is a female. I even bought her a new mate, a young male recently, but he was chased by her and dissapeared. However, when chasing him, it didnt usually last long and his/her behaviour was more like a furious female guarding her fry (fins close to the body, dark belly, big mouth), than male's (show the fins widely open). In fact it (he/she) almost never opens the fins fully.

Pictures can be found here: http://foto.halicky.sk/eli/kakadu/ , sorry for bad quality, she/he is always hiding and I just quickly made some shots to identificate if it is a male or a female. Ive just bought her another younger male, so I dont want him to have the same destiny as the previous one and possibly remove him if this one is a male. So it would be very helpful for me if you can help.

 

[jose_vogel]

Astrid, it´s a male

 

[Astrid]

Hmm thank you, that's what I've been worried about.

 

[Mike Wise]

Males over 5cm/2" in length develop large fleshy lips while females' lips are more typical for apistos. Your male didn't develop the long anterior dorsal fin spikes because it is a domestic strain. Color was preferentially selected over length of the fins. Eventually this produced your fish - a highly colorful fish with shorter than typical dorsal spines.

 

[Astrid]

Males over 5cm/2" in length develop large fleshy lips while females' lips are more typical for apistos. Your male didn't develop the long anterior dorsal fin spikes because it is a domestic strain. Color was preferentially selected over length of the fins. Eventually this produced your fish - a highly colorful fish with shorter than typical dorsal spines.

Yeah this may be true, although I remember that the male which died, which was in fact most probably brother of this one, had normal (long) dorsal fin spikes...

When I now look at the photos I don't understand why I insisted so long that it is a female...

Thank you again very much.