# Plakat male or plakat female?



## duskydolphin (Oct 30, 2013)

I've read a lot of the threads on plakat vs female subject, but not on plakat male vs plakat female. I have one fish that I just haven't been able to figure out. 'Mystery fish' was labeled as a female at my LFS and seemed to show all the signs of being a female until a couple days ago when I did water changes for all my quarantine tanks when 'Mystery fish' started flaring at some of my other females. 

I've gone through my personal checklist and I'm still not certain. Ovipositor/egg spot is present, anal fins are more pointy than boxy (but I have seen some pics of females PKs with longer anal fins), and the beard seems a bit large for a female. Maybe someone is a bit more familiar with plakats? 

Here's some pics: 1 and 2 - flaring, 3 - not flaring, 4 - egg spot

I should also add that 'Mystery fish' is quite small, body length is a little over an inch


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## lilnaugrim (Mar 27, 2013)

That's a male for certain. There's no ovaries. Egg Spots are a bad way to distinguish male or female for Bettas. Males have fake egg spots which will sometimes go away as they get older but many keep theirs. Soooo yeah, bad way to try to tell lol.

But males cannot have ovaries (unless it's a transgender fish! ;-) haha) so those are a cone shape behind the circular stomach, but in his pics you see just the round stomach and nothing behind it (since he's not see through, I'm just looking for the shape of them) so hence a male. besides females don't have beards that big, they have them, just not that big.


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## duskydolphin (Oct 30, 2013)

Thanks. I had a hunch but wasn't sure. I don't want to take him back to the store, maybe he'll become my desk betta


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## lilnaugrim (Mar 27, 2013)

Yeah, he's very young still so he should live a long time ^_^ I think he'd make a great desk Betta! ;-)


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## nixie (Nov 21, 2013)

you have a beautiful fish ^^


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## BlueLacee (Dec 8, 2013)

HE is very beautiful.


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