Your confusion is understandable considering the number of common names people use to describe the same species. That's why I preffer to stick with the scientific ones...
Anyway...
'
Gold', '
opaline', '
blue', '
lavender' and '
platinum' are all just names used to describe the various color morphs of
trichogaster trichopterus. This species can also be called the 'three-spot' gourami.
You can think of them as different colors of rats - beige rats and white rats are pretty much the same in every way except for color
The 'gourami' family is
Osphronemidae. It has, in the past, been given various other names.
'Belontidae' used to be a family in which many gouramies were placed but it is now the sub-family
belontiinae.
Gouramies have also been listed as
anabantidae and all sorts of other names such as
polyacanthidae.
The genera also change from time to time. For example, the fish I call
colisa fasciata (the banded gourami -
pic) has also been called
trichogaster fasciata and
polyacanthus fasciata.
They do still change but, as far as I am aware, right now, the family, at least, is pretty much safe as
Ophronemidae
The family
Osphronemidae consists of 4
sub-families:
Osphroneminae - giant gouramies (eg:
osphronemus laticlavius or
o. goramy)
Belontiinae - combtails (eg:
belontia signata)
Macropodinae - paradisefish and bettas (eg:
macropodus opercularis and
betta splendens)
Luciocephalinae - includes all the common 'gourami' genera such as
trichogaster,
colisa and
sphaerichthys. Examples of species in this subfamily are
sphaerichthys osphromenoides (chocolate gourami),
trichogaster trichopterus (three-spot),
colisa lalia (dwarf) and
colisa chuna/sota (honey). This group also includes pikeheads.
To answer your question, yes, chocolates, blues/golds and honeys etc
do belong to the same FAMILY as paradisefish. However, the latter is in a different
sub-family and all four are from different genera (ie: chocolates belong to the genus
sphaerichthys, blues/golds to
trichogaster, honeys to
colisa and paradisefish to
macropodus).
Confusingly, some fish often reffered to as 'gouramies' don't belong to the family
osphronemidae.
For examples the kissing gourami,
helostoma temminkii , has been placed in a family all its own -
helostomatidae.
Also, fish in the genera
ctenopoma,
microctenopoma and
anabas, while very similar and closely related to gouramies, are in the family
anabantidae (which no longer includes any 'gouramies'). The family also includes the genus
sandelia - a genus you don't tend to see in shops though it's a shame cause I like them
Here's a pic to drool over -
sandelia capensis
I hope that kind of answered your questions (and hopefuly didn't add to the confusion
)
ARE THEY?
