What Is A Betta?

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What Is A Betta?

Bettas are classified within the suborder Anabantoidei, all the members of this group have an accessory breathing organ called a labyrinth. This allows them to live in places where there is less oxygen, such as the rice paddies of Thailand. Larger, short finned males are still fought in many places around world. In the wild this fighting is the way the species makes sure that only the best and strongest will carry on the geneolgy. But, you must keep in mind that those fish were spawned for just that purpose, not like the Betta Splendens that we find in our local pet stores, who were spawned for their beautiful colors and long fins. Lots of people in that area of the world still catch them in their wild habitat. Most bettas in captivity will survive an average of 2 years.

What you will find most in the United States is the Betta Splendens. There are some breeders that raise some of the "Wild" types of bettas, but they are sometimes hard to come by, and costly. Betta Splendens can come in a wide range of colors, from the "Opaque White" to the "Milano Black". That is one of the things that endears the betta to many of the people who breed them, they have the ability to create almost any color they can dream of. Not all of the colors are easy to come by, but that never stopped anyone. One of the main things you need to know in order to breed for specific color, is the order in which the layers of colors appear on skin surface of a Betta Splendens. This will allow you to see what color you need to strip away, in order to get to the color below it......by strip away, I mean to breed it away, but that gets into genetics......

........beyond the color comes the patterns of the colors; solid, cambodian, butterfly, marbled, ......there are more, but I think you get my point. Show breeders usually stick to one or two colors and patterns that do the best for them, and fool around with the other colors for fun, but for the average entuthist it's fun to see what comes from random breeding. Which ever way you want to go, be sure to have fun, and enjoy your fish.

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