Siamese fighting fish
Fighting fish

Some people in Malaysia and Thailand are known to have collected wild bettas at least by the 19th century, observing their aggressive nature and pitting them against each other in gambling matches akin to cockfights. In the wild, betta spar for only a few minutes before one fish retreats; domesticated betta, namely Plakat bettas, are bred specifically for heightened aggression, and can engage for much longer, with winners determined by a willingness to continue fighting; once a fish retreats, the match is over. Fights to the death were rare, so bets were placed on the bravery of the fish rather than its survival. Due to the difference in genetics from domesticated bettas being originally bred for fighting, captive ornamental species tends to be more aggressive than wild betta species.

The popularity of these fights garnered the attention of king of Siam (Thailand) who regulated and taxed the matches and collected fighting fish of his own. In 1840, he gave some of his prized fish to Danish physician Theodore Edward Cantor, who worked in the Bengal medical service. Nine years later, Cantor published the first recorded article describing these fish, giving them the name Macropodus pugnax. In 1909, British ichthyologist Charles Tate Regan found there was a related species already named Macropodus pugnax, and thus renamed the domesticated Siamese fighting fish, Betta splendens, or "splendid fighter".
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