Betta History

Betta Madness has been around for a long time. It started in Siam some 150 years ago. The Siamese people would fight bettas, and hence the first form of betta madness was born: People would wager everything they owned, even their families! These betta fights were popular, so much so that the King of Siam decided to license them and to collect on them as well. Bettas that were fought back then looked nothing like the ones on this website. For that matter, bettas were originally boring, dull looking little thangs that would hang out in ponds, ditches, sluggish streams and rice paddies in Thailand and Malaysia.Betta Madness has been around for a long time. It started in Siam some 150 years ago. The Siamese people would fight bettas, and hence the first form of betta madness was born: People would wager everything they owned, even their families! These betta fights were popular, so much so that the King of Siam decided to license them and to collect on them as well. Bettas that were fought back then looked nothing like the ones on this website. For that matter, bettas were originally boring, dull looking little thangs that would hang out in ponds, ditches, sluggish streams and rice paddies in Thailand and Malaysia.

In 1909, our finned friends change names when Mr. Tate Regan pointed out that there were already a specie called Macropodus Pugnax, hence the need for a new name. Regan came up with Betta Splendens.

It was not until 1927 that the first brightly colored, long finned bettas arrived in the US. They were a shipment sent to Mr. Frank Locke of San Fransisco. He opened his package, and behold, there were the beautiful bettas, and behold square, there were some light bodied, red finned bettas as well!! He named them Betta Cambodia, probably thinking it was another specie of bettas. Little did he know. It was in fact simply a new color mutation, the beginning of a massive explosion of colors in betta world. From clear to jet black and everything in between, this is the most fun fish to breed and work with, hence the Betta Bug is so easily contracted, because there is always another color, a new pattern you don't own and just gotta have… A very dangerous disease indeed.