Bettas were gambled on in Thailand a thousand years ago
Betta splendens, the Siamese fighting fish native across Mainland Southeast Asia, was domesticated on Thailand's central plain more than a millennium ago for aggression matches like cockfighting. Today it is Thailand's national aquatic animal and a global aquarium star—yet wild populations rate Vulnerable on the IUCN Red List.
Rice paddies made the betta. The fish lives in shallow, weedy marshes, floodplains and paddy fields, where heat drives oxygen out of the water, and it survives by gulping air through its labyrinth organ, a trait shared by every member of the suborder Anabantoidei. Wild habitats swing from pH 6.9 to 8.2 and from 15 °C to 40 °C in air temperature, which is why the species tolerates foul tanks and has established itself in waters around the world. Dense plants let rival males hold separate patches and shelter spawning females and young fry.
People on Thailand's central plain domesticated it more than a thousand years ago, one of the earliest fish to be tamed, and bred it to fight in gambling bouts like cockfights. King Rama III is said to have given specimens to the Danish naturalist Theodore Cantor, who described them in 1849 as Macropodus pugnax, big-footed aggressive fish, probably for the long pelvic fins. Pieter Bleeker created the genus Betta in 1850, and in 1910 Charles Tate Regan untangled Cantor's mixed description and separated out the species we now call Betta splendens.
Its names carry the same history. Thai pla kat means biting fish and covers the whole genus, while betta probably comes from a Malay term tied to an ancient warrior tribe, so bet-tah is closer to the original than the English bay-tuh. Wild fish are only 6 to 8 centimetres long, dull green, brown or grey with short fins, and flash colour only when agitated; the flowing fins and bright hues of pet shops are products of selective breeding.
Thailand, which made the betta its national aquatic animal, still leads world exports, yet pollution and habitat destruction have left wild populations rated vulnerable by the IUCN.
Source: Siamese fighting fish
