Wild Betta Videos for Research
Hi everyone! I’m a biologist interested in developing wild-type Betta species as a comparative system for studying the evolution of social and reproductive behavior.
I’m currently especially interested in the incredible diversity of courtship, spawning, egg handling, and parental care across wild Betta. Bubble-nesting and mouthbrooding species can differ dramatically in how males and females coordinate during spawning, what happens during and immediately after the embrace, which parent initially picks up the eggs, how eggs are transferred between the sexes, and what the male subsequently does with them.
A lot of the most detailed knowledge about these behaviors seems to exist within the aquarium community rather than in the scientific literature so I figured I'd start by looking for existing videos of wild-type Betta spawning or breeding, particularly full or relatively unedited sequences. They absolutely do not need to be professional quality. Old phone videos may be useful.
I would be especially interested in videos showing:
-courtship leading up to spawning
-the spawning embrace itself
-egg release and the few seconds immediately afterward
-which fish recovers/moves first after the embrace
-males or females picking up eggs
-female-to-male egg transfer in mouthbrooders
-repeated spawning bouts during the same breeding event
-unusual courtship or spawning behaviors
mouthbrooding males taking up, manipulating, holding, or releasing eggs/fry
-bubble-nesting males retrieving eggs or maintaining the nest
Any wild Betta species would be useful, including B. channoides, albimarginata, pugnax, macrostoma, unimaculata, smaragdina, imbellis, mahachaiensis, brownorum, etc.
If you have footage, I’d love to know, if possible:
Species:
Approximate date:
Captive-bred or wild-caught:
Location/population/strain, if known:
Whether the pair had spawned before:
Anything unusual you noticed:
Please don’t induce a spawning event or change how you keep your fish just for this request. I’m mainly looking for videos people already have from normal breeding and husbandry.
At this stage I’m trying to determine what material exists and what behaviors are worth examining systematically. If particular videos eventually become useful for formal research, I would contact the owner first to discuss permission, attribution/acknowledgment, and any additional information needed before using them.
If you’ve bred wild Betta for years and have observations but no videos, I’d also be very interested in hearing what you’ve noticed—especially behaviors that differ among species or that you rarely see described in books or papers.
Feel free to comment or DM me. And if you know a serious wild-Betta breeder, group, forum, or YouTube channel that might have this kind of footage, I’d really appreciate being pointed in the right direction.
Thank you!