# Throwback breeding B. splendens (fancy type)



## Mcbettas (Sep 22, 2016)

So as people get a hold of more and more wild betta species I've been noticing a few hybrids with in the wild community (note that most wild keepers try to maintain their strains pure) but what if all individuals of a species got "lost" to hybridization or extinction in the wild, can breeder take fancy bettas (B.splendens) and "back breed" them to get the wild type? I know this would only work with in that species, but is it possible to achieve similar or exact characteristics of the whole complex? 

Sorry if I'm not being particularly clear I tried to explain my qustion as well as I could.


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## RickyTan (Jan 26, 2017)

It is impossible to breed a true "wild" strain from a hybrid strain, but it is possible to breed a fish that has the appearance of a wild strain. In some Countries where they fight betta smaragdina, they would cross the betta splendens into their betta smaragdinas to increase the stamina/power of their fighting strain and cross it back to their smaragdina strain to give it the appearance of a smaragdina yet having the stamina/power a splenden has.


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## Mcbettas (Sep 22, 2016)

RickyTan said:


> It is impossible to breed a true "wild" strain from a hybrid strain, but it is possible to breed a fish that has the appearance of a wild strain. In some Countries where they fight betta smaragdina, they would cross the betta splendens into their betta smaragdinas to increase the stamina/power of their fighting strain and cross it back to their smaragdina strain to give it the appearance of a smaragdina yet having the stamina/power a splenden has.


Would that be just another fancy? It might be a far strech but would they consider it as a different species or sub-species ? 
Also if you had no outer interference of a wild specimen would breeders be able to selectively breed (let's say a tri colored plakat) to look or be close to the original wild splendens fish that fancy strains started from? 
Can this be done with the same fancy fish to get other species in the complex? 
Sorry for all the qustions but this is really interesting for me for some odd reason.


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## RickyTan (Jan 26, 2017)

I don't think it is possible to breed any fish resembling the other species in the complex such as mahachai/smaragdina/stiktos from a fancy splenden strain, but i do believe it possible to breed a fancy strain back to looking like a wild splenden as most fancy splendens we keep today are believed to have been bred from betta splendens/imbellis crosses, however, some believe that the splenden and imbellis fish are the same species, genetically they are nearly identical, with only minor phenotype variations. When you take a fancy guppy strain and just let it randomly mix with other random strains for a bunch of generations, you end up with a fish starting to look like a wild endler (they are infact the same species, with the same DNA, but are given a different name for conservation purposes.)


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