The Liberty Molly is a long-established aquarium fish that was imported into the hobby before World War 2 and has never disappeared since. However, our aquarist forefathers considered any short-finned molly to be Poecilia sphenops, and so the Liberty Molly was also treated as a variant of this species. Today we distinguish again a lot of species among the short-finned mollies and so the Liberty Molly was assigned to the species Poecilia (subgenus Mollienesia) salvatoris, which was already described in 1907 from warm springs in the area of San Salvador in El Salvador.
The name “Liberty Molly” was given because the three-colored dorsal fin of the males reminded imaginative people of the colors of the French tricolor and the American flag – both symbols of liberty.
Liberty Mollies are extremely lively, fast fish, which give a lot of pleasure, but they should never be combined with calm-loving species.
For our customers: the animals have code 280562 on our stocklist. Please note that we supply exclusively to wholesalers.
Text % photos: Frank Schäfer