Color Blind?

[thelastbetta]

Are bettas color blind or can they see colors? One of my males I had before used to flare at the red and blue gravel that was in his tank before I changed it to a more natural color of brown and black and he stopped so I was just wondering?

 

[carrera]

not sure about bettas specifically, but most fish are colorblind. they can see color shadings and reflected light though. that may explain a betta flaring at a certain colour?

 

[Synirr]

Why would so many fish be so colourful and use colour as a form of interspecies communication if they were colourblind?
Think about males advertising their fitness to females through their vibrant colouration.

 

[thelastbetta]

That's what I thought but I wasn't sure.

How come some bettas though are like black and the wilds have almost no color? I thought most colors were 'bred' in over the years.

 

[Synirr]

Wilds do NOT have almost no colour. They're not as vibrant because they have to balance display with camoflage to survive, but the idea that they are all dull brown or something is a myth. In fact, when it comes to splendens complex wilds, the darker the water the fish lives in, the more iridescent and colourful they are so other bettas will be able to spot them through the coffee-coloured water (hence why mahachai are in such high demand.)
http/ibc-smp.org/species/mahachai.html
That's pure wild, baby

If you surf some of the species profiles in the IBC species maintence program's website, you'll see that a great many of them are colourful. They're not unnaturally eye-catching like our splendens, but they do possess colours that certainly don't serve them well as camoflage, so what good would it be doing them if they couldn't see it? Wilds get noticeably more vibrant during territorial and courtship display.

You're right that most colours you see in today's splendens are enhanced through line breeding though... which, by the way, is the only reason there are black bettas