Color difference in granulosas

[david]

Last year I caught a beautiful female orange & brown granulosa. This year, at a different pond a few miles away, I caught (actually he swam right up to me) a male granulosa, but his colors are somewhat different: his orange is more like pale yellow, and his brown is more like greenish-brown. You guys ever heard of that before? I've checked out the anatomical stuff and I'm pretty sure both are granulosas. Why the difference in color?

 

[joan]

Differences in diet, water quality, habitat, etc. You'll never find two animals (of any species) that are exactly the same.