Incredible footage of wild Betta

[Gertrudae]

 

[gwand]

Thanks for sharing. Nature is perfect if humans don’t interfere.

 

[plebian]

I posted this, along with another companion video maybe a week ago under "Betta Lovers" (in the Betta forum, naturally).

 

[plebian]

Nature is perfect if humans don’t interfere.

You mean if you ignore the 3Ps: predators, parasites and pathogens and the requirement to adapt or perish? It should also be noted that humanity is a naturally occurring phenomenon which one might reasonably classify as pathogenic.

 

[Gertrudae]

Sorry

 

[GaryE]

It's very similar to unedited footage I've watched, though in that case, the male splendens my friend got on a go pro moved around less and didn't hang with other fish. They were in the background though, and different habitats, different times of year, etc would make for different behaviour. I'd assume with their decent range, Betta splendens wouldn't always have the same fish sharing their habitats.

I enjoyed the croakers too, It made me want to set up a large grassy tank with fish I can't get anymore. The lure of gouramis never goes away - the entire Anabantoid family is interesting.

I thought I saw Rasbora borapetensis zip by early. That's a really under rated fish.

As my wild caught Hoplisoma have gotten used to tank life, they run to the surface to breathe individually, When they first arrived, they used the same group breathing strategy as the Bettas and gouramis in the video. It's sensible, and interesting to see how air breathing corys and Anabantoids a world apart have the same tricks. It's a far cry from Bettas raised in jars with oversized fins hanging under the surface all day.

I didn't see @plebian 's original posting of this. Maybe I'm not a Betta lover, and you'll only catch my eye with "wild" in the title...

 

[plebian]

Sorry

Nothing to be sorry about. I just found it strange that you received 5 likes and several comments for your post, while my original post received 159 views to date and NO likes (or dislikes) and NO comments. I guess there really aren't any Betta lovers on this forum.

 

[GaryE]

I'll take a guess - there are lots of Betta lovers here, but they like domestic, linebred Betta splendens. The nature side of our fish isn't very interesting to a lot of newer aquarists, and if they don't see fancy fins or linebred plakat colours at the start, they aren't interested in watching. They want to see the breeder's craft.
They also, statistically, want to see videos under 3 minutes.
It's similar with Discus, where the highly linebred, far from natural Discus being mass farmed will draw more attention than the (to me) far more beautiful wild possibilities. Again, the ability to produce mutants is respected in our hobby, and nature rarely is. Some people can look at both and enjoy them, but fancy Bettas, guppies, platys, swordtails, mollies, discus, other modified fish will always be seen as interesting, while the real fish will appeal to a minority of nature nerds.
This video got me with "wild" I will look at any video of any fish if it's shot in the wild. I don't have to like the fish in the video, but the habitats are fascinating. So the subject heading will draw differently interested eyes.