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This is one of those out there questions, but here goes.

How do you tell a male short finned Betta from a Female Betta?

Ok well maybe not to out there.

Thanks.

mts.gif" border="0"> I vote do you?
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Males still have longer fins and often more vibrant colour. Also, the two long fins that come down in front of the ventral fin are much longer in the male. And females have the egg spot.

<Vet in Training>
Blog under development: http://www.nearlydrferox.blogging4life.com/

Not out there at all... this question has been asked and answered numerous times in this forum. Here's one of my own turns as asking: female vs short-finned male.

The picture links are obsolete and unfortunately, I'm on my laptop without access to my pics. You'll have to use your imagination.

Anyway, there's ways to tell, but rarely a sure-fire way.

-Oviposter: white egg spot on the belly, near the pectoral fins on a female (some males may show a white spot though)
-general body shape: female more voluptuous, not as sleek as a male, belly is usually more rounded
-Aggression: generally more ounced in a male, especially short-tailed (there's aggressive females, too!) I've successfully kept a variety of females in different combination in a community tank. The only "female" I've ever had problems with is the fish described in my above link... who was short-finned male!

And here is where my brain fries... I can't think of the other signs offhand. And I've got to run, anyway. Work is calling!

~Meow. Thus spoke the cat.~

Ok I have looked at the bettas and they both have the white dot. But one has much longer front fins than the other, So I am still at a loss on this so here are some pics for you guys.

Taka






Mariko







Does this help you?

mts.gif" border="0"> I vote do you?
My Tanks at Photobucket

Taka I would bet on being female.

Mariko could be male. I have a male with an egg spot at the moment, although that's getting smaller. If Mariko's body gets any more coloured, or the fins are still growing, I'd be inclined to treat her as a male. I've heard of long-finend females who are also more likely to be agressive, but I've never seen one.

<Vet in Training>
Blog under development: http://www.nearlydrferox.blogging4life.com/

One way to tell, most times, is to hold up a small mirror to that the betta can see him/herself. Males flare up, whereas females will look curious or ignor it. Also, when males show off, they flare their gill cover frills, which females don't have. A very knowledgeable breeder on a betta forum taught me that little trick.

I vote! Do you?

Well I am still not quite sure but I am but about 99% sure that Mariko is a male. How I figure? Well sometime last night or today, the divider in the tank came away from the wall and he got into the other side of the tank with Sake (who btw is twice his size.) Well after untold hours in the tank the little guy has no damage at all. Sake on the other hand is missing big chunks out of his fins.

Now here is the wierd thing Sake is flaring all the time, but the little guy just looks at him, doesn't flare at all, just kind of yawns at him.

Do the females attack the males? I guess its possible.

mts.gif" border="0"> I vote do you?
My Tanks at Photobucket

I'm pretty sure they are both girls, you can see the white triangle of eggs through the body.

The top one is a nice little catch! looks to have metallic and rosetail genes somewhere in there, her scales look uneven. The bottom one I'm not certain of, but the body shape is female and the fins look to be VT/CT, and the VT ones are the types where you'd have longer finned females. I agree that they are longer than your average female, but that is about the only thing that would make me think that it might be a juvie boy.

Females can completely trash males, they are every bit as aggressive and if they feel in the mood to fight IME they tend to inflict more damage than males as there isn't as much posturing. Plus there is much more to easily damage on a longfinned male than a female, even if they were equally aggressive, I'd expect the one with longer fins to show more damage.

For animals, the entire universe has been neatly divided into things to (a) mate with, (b) eat, (c) run away from, and (d) rocks. - Terry Pratchett