Belly line in DPs: a sex thing or a dominancy statement?

[Mareva]

Well now, here's a question for all of you DP owners: ever seen a dominant female with a belly line?

I thought it was a sex thing and that only males had it but Nick here has a female with the big belly line (hopefully he'll post the picture here). What are your thoughts on this?

Out of my 3 DPs, 2 are males and 1 female. Palua (male) is the dominant one, twice the size of the other 2 and is developping the dark belly line (he's not even a year old yet). Palua first developped a white belly line and then it got dark. Fidji, the small male has developped the white belly line just lately. The female has a white belly and not lines.

[crazedpuffer]

I've heard of quite a few females with the stripes. That's why it's better to rely on eye wrinkles when sexing them.

[Nick]

I've heard rumors of belly lines on very dominant females, but never saw it before Marilyn. She tangles with the big male, Pig, all the time, he has simillar coloration and belly stripe, but several visible eye wrinkles. When the tank had 5 dps in it, she never had a belly line - only Boeing, my original DP who was a bit of a small guy, and Pig, who was much bigger, had lines. Both had eye wrinkles, and would go into dominance contests all the time, though rarely ever snapped at each other or gave chase. Only after Boeing passed did Marilyn get a stripe and begin contesting Pig for what used to be Boeing's territory. Pig and Marilyn chase/snap all the time, but as I've never seen a nipped fin, and their size/power is equal, I allow them to go at it, there would be separation if either bit one of the small, gentle females, Otis and Pip, who are kind and gentle all the time, both to each other and the big puffers. Here's that picture of Marilyn again. If anyone can figure out what might be going on with "her" I'd love to know. Could she have started out female but become male once there was only a single male in the tank, too much after puffery puberty to get eye wrinkles? Or are some females just big mean territorial mommas that would rather contest a male's dominance than make babies?
Here's Marilyn again, sorry about the hard water marks, I took the picture rather quickly.

[thejoie]

The sexing thing is sooooo hard for me.

My "suspected" male has eye wrinkles, but no stripe and he's smaller than my two females.

I SURE hope he's a male though That would be pretty awesome....

[Nick]

I've never heard of a DP displaying eye wrinkles at any size and not being male. I had at least heard rumors of big vicious female Dps with belly lines now and again before my Marilyn grew up into one of them.