Platies are common and popular live bearers for the community and planted aquarium. Extremely hardy and capable of handling a wide range of temperatures and water conditions, these fish originated in Central America. Technically there are two types of play, the common platy and the variatus, though there has been so much hybrid development to bring out great colors that the two variations are difficult to distinguish. In the wild variatus get slightly larger than their platy cousins. In the aquatic trade only platy variations are available.

Male platies are slightly smaller than the females and have a gonopodium at the anal fin, and females have rounder bellies. Like most live bearers, platies are distinguished by color. Tux means the body is black (like wearing a black tux) and wag means that the tail is black (dog wagging a tail). Colors mean what they say. Yellow is yellow and blue is blue:).