# True meaning



## Mecharoni (Oct 31, 2011)

What is the meaning of betta splenden and plakat?


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## jessiepbg (Nov 13, 2010)

When naming species of anything, be it fish, reptiles, birds, etc, scientists use a system called binomial nomenclature. The first word in a scientific name is the genus, a larger, but closely related group of animals. The second word in the name is the species, such as dogs or cats. As a general rule, the genus and species name will Latin or Greek. Betta splendens is the species of fish that many people just call "Bettas". While it's the most common species in the genus _Betta_ and the one you see in pet stores labelled as such, there's actually about 50 other species that fall under the same genus. 

Plakat is a fin type in Betta splendens. It's the first set of pictures on this post: http://www.bettafish.com/showthread.php?t=29868


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## Bombalurina (Oct 10, 2011)

As Jessie has said, there are many species under the betta genus. These include betta imbellis, betta smaragdina, betta channoides - a whole heap. If you go on Aquabid under "Wild-type" bettas, you will see a lot of different species for sale.


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## Mecharoni (Oct 31, 2011)

Wht is the true "SPLENDEN"
WATS is charactheristic


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## jessiepbg (Nov 13, 2010)

Splendens are all the Betta fish you see in cups at the store. You won't see any other kind of Betta in Petsmart or Petco. Here's the wikipedia article if that helps: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betta_splendens


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## Bombalurina (Oct 10, 2011)

From what I remember of Latin, betta splendens translates literally as 'warrior that is beautiful/splendid'.


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## SnowySurface (Apr 25, 2011)

This article goes into the origin of the name. If you don't feel like scanning through the whole thing, I can just copy&paste the blurb. 



> Siamese fighting fish were introduced to America in 1910 as “*Betta Splenden*“. It is rumored that the word “*betta*” came from an Asian warrior clan named the “Bettah” and that the second half “Splenden”, meaning “Splendid” in Latin, was added later when brilliant colors emerged.


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## Firewood (Oct 7, 2011)

New here, but it was my understanding that "pla kat" was the Thai name for Betta. Someone please correct me if that's wrong.


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## jessiepbg (Nov 13, 2010)

Yeah, that's right. It looks like "pla kat" means tearing fish/betta.


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