Peaceful betta
Betta imbellis (males) in normal coloration
The Peaceful fighting fish ( Betta imbellis ), sometimes called Little fighting fish, is a freshwater fish in the subordination of the labyrinth fish and is assigned as a foam nest building catching Fight the Fish Splendens circle.
Features
The Peaceful Betta reached a total length of approximately four and a half to five centimeters. Females are slightly smaller. The opercular spots are usually blue or green colored, but they can also be red or absent. The normal coloring is simple. Both the male and the female, two dark longitudinal stripes are emerging, supplemented by a stepped tail spot. In the splendor of coloring, the male appears in an intense metallic blue. Both the edge of the tail fin, part of the anal fin and the pectoral fin are red. The females change their color only in the areas of the fins in a delicate red ( with the exception of the dorsal fin ), and blue; the rest of the body Coloration has dark horizontal stripes. The Peaceful fighting fish differ slightly in conformation and coloring depending on the area of distribution.
Like all labyrinth fish also has the Peaceful Betta is a labyrinth organ, which means that he is not solely dependent on gill respiration, but can breathe through the labyrinth organ atmospheric oxygen. This allows these fish, even in relatively warm and thus to survive low oxygen water.
Occurrence
The Peaceful Betta has a spacious area of distribution in Southeast Asia. Its natural occurrence extends over Sumatra, Singapore, the Malay Peninsula, Borneo, Laos, the Vietnamese island of Phú Quốc, as well as parts of North and South of Thailand. He is to be found in streams, rivers, flood and rain forest areas. Here he lived in both stationary and flowing waters, where he is staying in rather shallow water and calm water regions with dense submerged vegetation. Its appearance is to be distinguished only with difficulty from that of the Siamese fighting fish ( Betta splendens). It is against this very closely related sister species significantly less aggressive.
Ecology
Since the first description of Betta imbellis 1975 by Werner Chocoholics the ecology of natural habitats has been thoroughly investigated. The type locality is Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, the holotype is located under the catalog number H4644 ZMH in Hamburg Zoological Museum. Depending on the source, the water temperatures fall from very different. They vary seasonally between 15 to 30 ° C; during the breeding period, he preferred temperatures up to 30 ° C. You can meet he is in all water types ( white, clear and black water ), here both in nursing and rivers in the acidic range ( pH 4.5 to 7.2 ). The electrical conductivity is between 10-280 ĩS / cm, the total hardness of between < 10 and <30 ° GCH.
Reproduction
With the construction of a foam nest on the water surface, the male signaled its readiness to breed. In this time of courtship the male displays its distinct splendor staining. Mature females spawn signal by vertical, dark salient body stripes their readiness to mate. Through several pairings note the partners coordinate the simultaneous release of sperm and eggs in the actual act of copulation. Immediately below the bubble nest the male wraps around the rotated on its back female. During the release of sperm and eggs are both animals in a spawning mortis. During fertilization, the eggs fall to the ground. The male then dissolves from the spawning Rigid, collects the eggs one with his mouth and spits them into the bubble nest. Following the male defends the nest area and operates the very intensive brood care to the free-swimming larvae after four to five days.
Relevance to humans
The Peaceful Betta is a relatively rare well-kept aquarium fish. On anabantoids specialized aquarists, usually organized in the International Association for labyrinth fish ( IGL ), maintain pure strains of different populations precisely known localities, which often differ significantly from each other. It is commercially available as most Betta species, rare.