# Female betta type identification thread



## Flare101 (Aug 28, 2013)

I'm really curious to know how people identify say, a HM female from a HMPK female (that's just an example). Any feedback is appreciated.


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## lilnaugrim (Mar 27, 2013)

Usually it's told from the breeder or after a while I tend to notice there's a difference in the dorsal's and their shapes although that's not always true. A bigger difference I find is in body size, PK's that I've seen and owned at least were bigger and grew faster than the regular HM girls that I've had. Again, this could just be me and my girls but that's what I've observed is all


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## Flare101 (Aug 28, 2013)

Okay, so let's just say you were looking at a LFS that had quality betta fish and poor labeling, how would I tell between let's say, a VT and one of their higher quality fish, a HM for example.


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## lilnaugrim (Mar 27, 2013)

A VT only has two ray's so you have to know about ray's. Here's one of my explanation for ray's: http://www.bettafish.com/showthread.php?t=87438&page=139#post2613201

As I state there, VT's have only two ray's and usually are more rounded or sort of pointed. VT is the classic droopy tailed Betta's and the females tend to look similar to their male counterparts. Here's a classic VT girl,









Here's a better more exaggerated example. This is a long finned girl and you can really see the two ray's.









And more so here









And this is a traditional Plakat girl, notice how the ray's stick out from the webbing on her tail fin. That's one trait of a PK, however sometimes a VT can have something similar if there was a Crowntail in it's gene line. Also note how thick and streamline she looks compared to the two VT's above. (Note the red VT is also eggy, that's why she's so fat)









Next "step" up is Delta and Super Delta. Delta's, of course being a triangle in geometry is similar in Betta tails. A Delta cannot reach the 180 degrees that a Halfmoon can but anything underneath and has MORE than 2 ray's. So 4 ray's or more and underneath 180 degree's is a DeT. This is one of my girl's aquabid picture, in the middle area of the end of her tail you can see that she's got four ray's making her a Super DeT since she almost reaches 180, but not quite.









Now Halfmoon's HAVE to get up to 180 degree mark or over (Over halfmoon; OHM) and can have anything from two ray's and more but aboslutely must get to the 180 degree mark to be considered HM. Here's an Aquabid picture which isn't mine. I do have HM girls but none have good enough pictures to show for an example lol She's about a 8-10 ray'd girl, hard to tell since it's not a close up. Notice the nice D shape of her tail.









Another Aquabid picture that isn't mine but you can see how her tail is straight up and down and makes the D shape, she's a Halfmoon.









And then of course you have your Crowntails which have varying degree's of angles, so some of them with poor breeding will have a tail like a VT and can't even get to a 100 degree mark. And then other's can actually get up at the full 180 degree mark. This girl is a Super DeT because she almost makes 180 but not quite.









The same goes for Double Tails (DT)









I believe I've covered the tail types, feel free to ask more questions ^_^


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## Flare101 (Aug 28, 2013)

This was extremely informational and I really appreciate it. I have a good understanding of what makes all the tail types what they are, I just had very little knowledge on how to identify it in females before. But this really helps. Really appreciate it.


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## lilnaugrim (Mar 27, 2013)

Sure ^_^ np


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## whiskandbowl (Aug 21, 2012)

This was really helpful! 
I'm usually in charge of the bettas at my work (water changes, etc) and I like to label the cups with the tail type. (I'm always surprised at the number of people who had no idea there were different tail types)
The females are tricky because they are just sold to us as "Female Betta"

I've always assumed they were veiltails, but now I know how to check and see if they are plakats. I'm actually leaning more towards plakat now, seeing as most of them have that extended rays on their tail


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## lilnaugrim (Mar 27, 2013)

Do note though, not all females with extended ray's are PK's. Sometimes you'll get a VT that has CT back in her line so she'll also have some extended ray's which does make it difficult to tell.

Generally if it comes from mostly 1 or 2 breeders or something, look at what they give you for males as well. If most of them are VT and they similar colors, chances are they are from the same spawn and are actually VT's as well


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## OrangeAugust (Jul 23, 2012)

lilnaugrim, Is roundtail actually a tail type? I've heard of it before and one of my females has a tail that it very round (it looks like a VT but there's no point). Is roundtail an actual tail type, or a type of VT?


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## lilnaugrim (Mar 27, 2013)

Round tail is a variation of VT as is Spade tail. Usually Round tails will come up when you breed VTxHM, so you'll get variations of VT's that can reach 180 status and then Round tail's and some other jumbled up tail types; it's usually not very definitive.


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## whiskandbowl (Aug 21, 2012)

lilnaugrim said:


> Do note though, not all females with extended ray's are PK's. Sometimes you'll get a VT that has CT back in her line so she'll also have some extended ray's which does make it difficult to tell.
> 
> Generally if it comes from mostly 1 or 2 breeders or something, look at what they give you for males as well. If most of them are VT and they similar colors, chances are they are from the same spawn and are actually VT's as well


I should also mention that many of the females we get have that streamlined body type too. Usually they are pretty dull in color, no where near as bright as the females you posted. I'll have to post a picture after work tonight
Like this:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/bc/Betta_splendens_female.jpg
http://g-images.amazon.com/images/G/01/askville/2679981_2845618_mywrite/betta06g.jpg

As far as breeder, I have no idea where they come from. We use a distributor.


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## lilnaugrim (Mar 27, 2013)

Yeah, the first one is definitely Plakat the second I'm not sure about since it's still a juvie girl. But the dorsal doesn't look entirely VT to me. However you do have to remember that PK's are just short finned VT's lol, so that's why it's difficult to name at first is all. The color isn't indicative of VT vs. PK, that's just all in the breeding what who her parents were. Both of them are stressed of course but the first one I would say is definitely a hybrid, probably mostly PK instead of wild now but down her family line somewhere they bred a PK and a wild and then retained the color through the line so she's got "Wild Type" Coloration but has the body of a PK if that all makes sense.

Something else I've personally noticed is that PK's will have all around shorter fins than VT's, their tails will be shorter, closer to the body and more rounded than a VT which will generally be more pointed and longer. I'll edit my post when I find suitable pictures.


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## OrangeAugust (Jul 23, 2012)

whiskandbowl, I find that females tend to be more nervous and fade out and get stress stripes whenever I see them in the stores. A lot of times they'll take a few days to weeks to settle in after I bought them, and then their true colors show. Maybe that's why the ones in your store aren't as bright.
Petsmart, for example, also sells their females when they're super young, though, so they almost always have stripes anyway.


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## lilnaugrim (Mar 27, 2013)

Actually nvm, I'll just make a new post since I accidentally clicked out of the window >.> Basically what I was saying is that VT's tend to have longer fins, pointier anal fins and more slender bodies where PK girls tend to have shorter fins, closer to the body, thicker bodies and more rounded tail fins as I'll illustrate.

Here is my big VT girl Mystique who is actually bigger than the PK girls for a while until they grew up lol now they're roughly the same size. Mystique is older than most of my other fish so that's why she's bigger, she's probably about a year and a half right now while the rest are just maybe hitting a year, probably less. But notice her longer fins and her caudal is pointed.


Here is one of my PK girls Stardust to compare with. Notice her shorter fins and rounded caudal, thicker body although she's much younger than Mystique.


Here again is Mystique with Cherry behind her who is another VT that I'll get to in a moment. Again, look at the nice long fins 


And back to Stardust


Just caught Mystique at the tail end of flaring just to show you the longer fins.


Here is a good one with Pineapple (yellow) who is a VT, her tail isn't as pointed but look at the lengths. You'll hardly get PK girls with long fins, and Aurora is in the back there for comparison.


Okay and here is Cherry from before, she's got two ray's, nice rounded caudal but her body is not streamlined or at least not as big as a PK, she's small and is still small, barely over an inch with just body. She's not PK, also look at the dorsal, VT's tend to have more slender dorsals that extend further where PK's tend to have more full dorsals that don't extend very far and make more of a spade shape, sorry hard to describe. But that trait isn't always true.


And here's a comparison for size lol, up against Mystique.


So that's VT vs. PK, I think I covered it all but feel free to ask more questions or for me to describe something better >.< lol


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## whiskandbowl (Aug 21, 2012)

Argh! I don't know now LOL. I will definitely have to get some pictures.

It's also crossed my mind that they are just "mutt" females. We get males a lot of times that don't have the best finnage, ie veiltails with spiky ends to their fins. I think there might be a lot of crossbreeding/bad genetics going on at the breeders


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## lilnaugrim (Mar 27, 2013)

Yeah, I wouldn't be surprised about that. That's why it's not wise to be breeding a Betta whom you don't know it's lineage because you could get a whole mess of things coming out. Now if you have the time to isolate and fix the issues, sure that could be fine but I don't know many people willing to do that many lines just to get a decent Betta when you can buy perfectly good pair from Aquabid since you would technically be saving money in the long run even though your pair costs more and stuff. 

But yep, could totally be mutts as well.


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## whiskandbowl (Aug 21, 2012)

Pics! Please please excuse the dirty cups. I wanted to change them tonight but we were extremely shorthanded and I had to run the register all night by myself. They were done Monday/Tuesday. (other employee doesn't get the concept of 2 pellets for fish, she just sprinkles them in *eyeroll*)









Here's a direct link to a larger image. Excuse the potato quality, I have a crappy phone and this was the best I could do
http://i43.tinypic.com/2j1wi0w.jpg

I love this girl. She's purple and white. Anyone want her? She's been at the store for 2+ months


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## OrangeAugust (Jul 23, 2012)

The purple and white one is so cute! I wonder why no one has bought her... how long do betas commonly stay in the store before people buy them?


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## Flare101 (Aug 28, 2013)

Okay, I have a greater understanding of tail type, but the hard one still is HMPK and HM, because they both look so similar as females. Would anyone care to elaborate more on deciphering those two rather similar varieties?


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## lilnaugrim (Mar 27, 2013)

Okay first girl is a PK for sure, look at the very short anal fin. Second could be an older VT but hard to tell without a larger picture.

Same with HMPK and HM, HMPK's tend to have larger, more streamlined bodies but yes they are extremely difficult to tell. However if you see one with only 2-4 ray's and is HM, it's most likely an HMPK. However some breeder's do breed regular HM's that only have 4 ray's it's just less common to see. Usually regular HM females will have 6-10 ray's, but again the 4-6 is pretty blurry. HMPK's will tend to have more membrane between the fins rather than mostly ray's like regular HM's will have. But it takes a really skilled eye to tell the difference and even then it's pretty darn difficult, sorry :-/


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