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By Anonymous I have a vivid memory from when I was growing up in suburbia, right outside the twin cities of Minnesota, where my elementary school held a ring toss tournament. I recall being excited for the big first place prize that was a beautiful, vibrant red Betta fish. Remembering the event is always so sad for me, even more so now, because I was so close to my victory of achieving the red flashing prize to only be dashed with a second place letdown. I had then been forced to watch another child run around and splash the poor Betta fish around in its tiny little container. I believe that the Betta fish did not even make it through the night before he went belly up. Those of us who are not fishy folk ask; what is a Betta fish? Well the simple answer that most people say is that it is a pet fish: Right? Wrong: this fish is someone’s companion animal who they look after and care for. However, more specifically the Betta fish is an incredibly old species fish originating form of Thailand. The Betta fish, as most people in the United States call them, is also called the Siamese fighting fish or Betta Splendens, and has been popular around the globe for quite some time. Meanwhile in the United States of America, the Betta fish has been only growing in popularity. In the past, United States residents would say “Gold Fish” when asked what companion fish they think of as being typical. As time passes, I am hearing more and more people say Betta Fish as the answer. In fact, pet stores often do not even sell goldfish in the typical marketing sense, often having one tank with a few small gold fish. While the pet stores have large colorful displayed filled with all kinds of Betta fish. I think that the Betta fish has become so popular due to their bright coloration, ease of care, and relatively short life span; a typical Betta fish lives anywhere from two to three years on average. How did the Betta fish become so popular or even become a common colorful solitary fish in a tiny jar sitting on shelves of pet stores? Well that has to do with the unusual history of the Betta fish, which is rather interesting due to the fact that Betta fish were and are used as entertainment. Their entertainment came from the same place as how the Betta Fish got their other name the Siamese fighting fish. In the past the Betta fish were used as a form of cock fighting animals as explained by Herzog the fighting of animals is very old and common in all corners of the world. For example in Japan it seems to be common for young boys to be gifted an insect of some kind to use for fighting. The practice is so common that there are websites dedicated to the fights and keeping track of the results with videos as evidence. I bring this up because the Betta fish originated in small slow moving river pools in the rivers of Taiwan. The change from a river fish to a tiny is a direct result from the use of Betta fish as a fighting for entertainment. The betta fish can live in larger encloses alongside other fish as well. I find that the carryover from the stigma as a fighting fish to be unfortunate because no fish should be completely solitary. Photo by dog.happy.art When humans decided to use this semi territorial river fish and begin fighting them some incredibly interesting physical and behavioral changes occurred over many, many generations along with human selected breeding. One of the first things that happened was the selection for aggressive behavior and a drive for continued fighting. Herzog references the drive for fighting in his book as “spirit” and it is the most sought after trait in animals used for fighting (Herzog 2010). While selection for aggression or “spirit” occurred, a second interesting change happed and that was physically. The Betta fish’s fins became not just elongated, but developed several different varieties of fin shape arising from the selected breeding practices. The types of fins that Betta fish developed are the Crown tail, Half Moon, Double tail, Comb tail, and Plakat just to name a few of them. Along with having larger and varied fin types, Betta fish developed colors that are more vibrant and dramatic; the most common colors are red and blue. When comparing the modern domesticated Betta fish to its relative non-domesticated cousins several traits become clear. The first difference people usually notice is the colors, although present in the non-domesticated Bettas, the color is muted and rarely covering the entirety of the fish’s body. The behaviors of the Betta fish is also drastically different in the non-domesticated species where fighting between each other only lasts minutes and rarely ends in death. The non-domesticated Betta fish often do not even fight and simply display intimidation behaviors or an aggressive behavior of chasing. The result of the intimidation displays often mean that one of the Betta fish; usually the smaller less dominate Betta fish is pushed out of the territory. As for the domesticated Betta fish the question remains: what are they used for today? The Betta fish are drifting away from being used as a fighting entertainment animal to a child’s first pet. I am happy that the Betta fish is no longer being used as a fighting entertainment source, but something worse may be happening: As the Betta becomes more popular, pet stores are breeding more and more of them all the while putting the Betta fish in smaller and smaller containers. When visiting a pet store there is almost always some Betta fish for sale and among them there are a few dead and floating there. As for being a child’s first pet, I feel that while owning a fish can be educational, children are not capable of being effective caretakers, and may not even see a Betta fish as a companion animal. This is why I encourage people to seriously consider understanding what a Betta fish is and what Betta fish need to be happy and healthy. References Hal, Herzog. Some We Love, Some We Hate, Some We Eat. 2010, HarperCollins Publishers none. Pet sit. 2016. —. scerieously fish. 2017. Short, Adam. Betta Fish Center. 12 January 2013. Smith, Meghan. How stuff works Animals. 2017. 20 march 2017. Sturgeon, Dianna. Animal Diversity. 2001. AUTHOR BIOI am a young man in his early twenties who studies all aspects of animals. I generally stick to studying non-human animals, but when looking at human and non-human animal interactions it takes a special perspective to try to understand all sides of that interaction. I would like to think that my years of studying animals has some standing and gives new perspectives for readers to think on. Comments are closed.
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This is a website about nonhuman animals, written by human animals taking a Society and Animals class at Minnesota State University, Mankato. Archives
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