An historic overview: The development of Betta Splendens tail forms

R39 The ancestor of all halfmoons

CHENMASWIL halfmoon  'BEST OF SHOW' IBC show 1993 Tampa, Florida

In 1849 Theodor Cantor published an article about a fighting fish that he called Macropodus pugnax [1, 2]. In 1909 C. Tate Regan realized that Cantor made a mistake and that pugnax already was an excisting related species. Regan renamed Cantor's fighting fish to the now common familiar name Betta splendens.

All the now so common known breeding forms of Betta splendens were derived from the short-finned (plakat) wildtype. For ages the short-finned form was held by the people in Thailand. The Thai bred fighters from wild caught bettas. Their main objectives were to develop its fighting nature, hardiness, size, fighting style and color. Selection of breeders was made by organizing fights with bettas from other breeders. The winner became the model for the next generation of fighters.

Because natural selection was not present here, after many generations bettas arose with a slightly longer dorsal and caudal fins. These fish didn't have the desired "fighting spirit" because they were less aggressive and couldn't manoeuvre as fast than their short-finned cousins. This betta with longer fins was now only bred for their beauty. Probably this form was already established when the Europeans and Americans came to South-East Asia in great numbers (1850). Around 1960 breeders from India succeeded to breed a bettas with to tailfins, the so-called doubletails. A typical characteristic of these fish is the extreme broad dorsal fin and the slightly shorter body length. Probably they wanted to loose this last characteristic by crossing doubletails with normal single tail bettas. The breeders noticed the offspring of these spawns had an improved form of the dorsal and caudal fins.

Slowly the aquariumhobby became more beloved in Europe and America. Asia responded to this by large-scale breeding of the longer-finned Betta splendens in big breeding-farms. Now hobbyists in Europe and America started to select these fishes in order to obtain certain characteritics in their fish. In 1960 an American breeder, Warren Young, succeeded to breed a betta with extreme long fins. Young called these bettas "Libby-bettas" after his wife Libby. These fish were sold to hobbyists all across the world and to the farms in Asia. It was this development that led to the now so familiar veiltail tailtype.

Around the same time a German breeder, Dr. Eduard Schmidt-Focke, bred the first deltatail betta. A betta with a symmetrical triangular tail shape. In 1967 in America the IBC (International Betta Congres) was founded. The IBC had the goal to breed Betta splendens with broad symmetrical fins instead of long. This resulted in fish with a better swim capacity. But still it took a long time before the other now so familiar tailtypes were developed. In 1980 some wellknown American betta breeders, like Peter Göettner and Paris Jones, developed the superdelta tailtype which were bettas with enormous fins. In 1984, the Frenchman Guy Delaval imported offspring of these fishes to France. Delaval selected and bred these to obtain a bigger angle of the caudal. In 1987 he succeeded to breed fishes with a 180 degrees angle. Rajiv Massilamoni realized that Deleval did what was thought to be impossible. Till that time most Betta splendens were asymmetrical deltas or superdeltas with a maximal spread of 160 degrees. Laurent Chenot and Rajiv Massilamoni started to cooperate in order to maintain this tailtype. They tried to breed these fishes but they were to much inbred. The male didn't make a nest anymore and didn't know how to wrap himself around the female. After many attempts they with petstore Betta splendens and different lines, Chenot and Massilamoni eventually succeeded to breed a fish which had a mother from Delaval and the father was a melano doubletail male from a American line. This fish was called R39, and was coupled to all the females in the lines of Chenot and Massilamoni. Again some fish showed up with the 180 degree spread. In 1991 the American betta breeder, Jeff Wilson saw these fishes an he called them "halfmoons". He started cooperating with Chenot and Massilamoni and the inbreeding of the American line led more frequent halfmoon appearance in the offspring. In 1993, Chenot, Massilamoni and Wilson showed on of their halfmoon fishes at the IBC show in Tampa Florida under the name CHENMASWIL. They won the "Best of show". This was the start of a true halfmoon fever.

The last 5-10 years another type of tail was developed. An Indonesian breeder, Ahmad Yusuf, developed the crowntail. Here the rays extended to outside the edges of the fin. This is why the fins get a "comb-like"appearance (is also called the combtail treat).

But the developments of the different tailtypes are still going on. People all across the world are still trying to develop halfmoons and crowntails with a better spreading and tailform. In the halfmoon breeding this already led to the development of halfmoon fish with a different ray-splitting (4-, 8- and 16-ray halfmoons). The better the ray-splitting, the better the tail is supported during the spreading. This support is especially important when the fish become older and their fins become longer. Other new developments in halfmoon breeding are the overhalfmoons, which have a spreading which is bigger than 180 degrees, and the rosetail halfmoon.

Also in the crowntail breeding this led to different variants with a different amount of rays which influences the number of the extentions (single, double, triple and double-double ray CT) but also influences the support and spreading of the tail.

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Female Tail Types

Female tail types are one of those things in this hobby that are just plain confusing, both for newcomers and veterans alike. Merchants selling on Aquabid often further complicate matters by suggesting singletail females from HM spawns and HM females are synonymous, or marketing a veiltail female as a HM simply because she base of her caudal can reach 180 degrees when the fish is fully flared. Hopefully this article can clarify some of this.

Let's start with the HALFMOON FEMALE:

Although you'll find many supposed 'HM Females' for sale for excellent prices, most of these are actually normal singletailed females which (may or may not!) come from HM spawns. The true Halfmoon female is phenotypically held to the same standard as the Halfmoon male, i.e. 180 degree caudal spread with sharp edges and an appearance of symmetry in all three unpaired fins. Every HM female I've seen also has more than secondary branching in the caudal fin, with many of them having quaternary and more branching. The true HM female is a powerful ally in your fishroom if you are breeding for HM, because she will usually produce a large percentage of true HM offspring when paired with a male of equal quality. For this reason, most breeders are loathe to part with them.

Some examples of true HM females with 180 degree caudal fins:

Halfmoon Females

Even if you are advanced enough to know the difference between a true HM female and a common Singletailed female, you may still be fooled by this doppelganger: The SUPER DELTA FEMALE:

Super Delta Female

Super Delta Tailed females are as common as Super Delta Tailed males from HM spawns, and, like SDT males, they have nice sharp edges, good spreads, and usually very decent branching and symmetry. However, if the tail span does not reach a full 180 degrees, they are not HM females. A span of about 150-170 degrees defines most SDT females. These females can often be had reasonably, and make excellent breeding stock, especially when using a Rosetail or OHM male.

Slightly less in degree of spread than the Super Delta Tail is the DELTA TAILED FEMALE:

Delta Tailed Female

The true Delta Tailed female does have some branching and possesses straight caudal edges; however, in these cases the spread is usually under 150 degrees. Its appearance is defined the same way as the delta-tailed guppy, from which it takes its name; that is, an almost triangular shaped tail with a blunt base.

It really can't be disputed that the most common female tail type available in the modern forms is the plain-Jane SINGLETAIL FEMALE:

Singletailed bicolor female

The Singletailed female is basically any longfinned, non fringe-finned betta that is NOT a doubletail, delta tail, super delta tail, or halfmoon. In fact, the term can be applied to any female that possesses one caudal (as opposed to the twin caudals of the DT) and is the correct term for these females without making the distinction between modern show type and traditional. However, although the term is versatile and can be used ambiguously, it makes for less confusion if the description is more succinct: CROWNTAIL STF, PLAKAT STF, et al. The difference between a singletail female from HM lines and a delta, super delta, or HM female is that the latter three have straight caudal edges and sharper corners. Regular singletailed females have a rounded appearance to their caudal.

Here are some examples of Singletailed females:

Examples of Singletailed Females

Beyond a doubt, the easiest female tail type to identify is the DOUBLETAIL FEMALE:



Like the DTM, the DTF has two caudal lobes as opposed to one and an increased dorsal fin. A DTF is called just that -- a doubletailed female -- regardless of quality or breeding, as long as she possesses the two distinct caudal lobes. Doubletailed females bring excellent traits to the table when working them into a ST line, such as increased dorsal width and fin volume, however because they are available in anything from veiltail to plakat, you want to make sure your DTF comes from a Halfmoon family before using her in your HM line. By the same token, if your goal is DT plakats, make sure your DTF is a plakat female and not a longfin.

More examples of Doubletail females:

Examples of Doubletail females

Although Crowntail males are quite easy to differentiate from non fringe-finned males, sometimes identifying CROWNTAIL FEMALES can be tricky. The obvious trait to look for is the ray extensions; however since some non-fringe finned females also have a bit of exaggeration in the ray extensions (it is a naturally occuring trait that was able to be selectively bred into the Crowntail fin type), it can be an imperfect science. Good crowntail females will actually have the fringe-finned effect with reduced webbing in all three unpaired fins. The look has been compared to eyelashes:

Female crowntails


Telling a PLAKAT FEMALE apart from a longfinned female of any variety is a task worthy of a medal. Even hobbyists who have been involved with bettas for years and years have trouble with this one sometimes, and I won't pretend to have any magical tips to identify this one correctly every time. It's always going to be guesswork, but with a little information, it can be reasonably accurate guesswork.

First, I wouldn't even recommend trying this one until the fish reach maturity. If you use plakat to help strengthen the fin rays of your longfin lines, as I do, then you are going to eventually have some mixed spawns of longfin and plakat and will have to try to tell the females apart. Unfortunately, all females look alike when they're only an inch or so long. However, once they are fully-grown, little differences appear. Longfinned females have longer, pointier fins than their plakat sisters, rounder, shorter bodies, and tend to be a bit less aggressive. Looking at the photos above and comparing them with the photos of the non-plakat females, you can see the more streamlined bodies and shorter, perter fins of the plakat female. Although this probably won't help you until it's too late, plakat females are also notoriously difficult to keep in their jars. They're among the hobby's finest jumpers!

Last but not least is the female tail type that causes the most misguided hope...the VEILTAIL FEMALE:

Veiltail female, photographer unknown. If you are the photographer, please email me so I can give you credit!

Why 'Misguided hope'? Because I have had countless emails from others in the hobby, usually newcomers, who tell me they think they found a HM female at their local fish store because the fish can spread to 180 degrees in the caudal when fully flared. I find myself in the position of having to shoot their enthusiasm down time after time by explaining that the odds are stacked the female is a veiltail in spite of her increased spread. So why aren't they considered Halfmoons?

The 180 degree spread is another naturally-occurring phenomenon in wild bettas, and in traditional plakats it is considered the ideal. The difference between true Halfmoons and a shortfinned betta (such as a plakat or a female) with the 180 spread is this: A true Halfmoon can hold the form when the fins are lengthened, usually because of a combination of fin rays, upbringing, and genetic shape of the tail. The finnage of a wild betta, traditional plakat, or female veiltail would droop into the typical 'veil' shape if the fins were lengthened, and only appear the hold the form as long as the finnage remains short. Although they can be hard to tell apart from other females, veiltail females never have more than secondary branching in the caudal, and usually have a more rounded appearance. The more difficult task is differentiating a veiltail female from a singletailed female from show lines which also has no more than secondary branching in the caudal. For example, female roundtails and female veiltails can look almost identical! It is important to know the genetics of your fish before using it in your breeding lines.

Here are some examples of veiltail females that even a veteran would be hard-pressed to identify:

Here's a particularly good-looking Veiltail female that one might be tempted to use in their breeding program. But watch out! Veiltail is a dominant trait, and this little lady would throw you about a hundred steps backwards:

So hopefully this helps you in identifying, not only your own females, but those you plan on purchasing. I've seen experienced and well-known breeders make the mistake of crossing an inappropriate female to a very good male and then wondering what went wrong with the spawn, so don't feel bad if it takes some practice to identify the tail types by sight. Don't believe every sales listing you read, and, whenever possible, try to buy directly from the breeder. It saves a lot of hassle later on!

 

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