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dragonlady7I have two betta fish.
Betta fish are good pets because they require little care and can live in quite a small bowl with no filtration system. I neglect them shockingly, I am sure. But I needed some sort of pet or I would go insane, and the frogs turned out to be too high-maintenance. (Sure, their cages seldom needed cleaning, but they needed live food. Which is not easy to get when you have no car.)
Betta fish are also called Siamese Fighting Fish. They are native to the rice paddies of Thailand. There, they live in oxygen-poor water and are fiercely territorial. They have been bred by humans because 1) they are beautiful, and 2) they will fight to the death if two males are put together in a tank. Apparently these fights are entertaining to watch, a la cockfights. I wouldn't know about either, but I suppose it's amusing that I've kept both chickens and now fighting fish in my lifetime. (Left to their own devices, yes roosters will fight, but not to the death. Cockfighting is unnatural. In the wild, bettas usually fight until one flees. In a tank, one can't flee. The other will eat him.)
Betta fish are of value to sociologists, apparently, because part of their fighting is the aggressive display they do first. It is called "flaring" and involves the fish extending all of its fins to their fullest extent (impressive, as they have beautiful fins) and flaring out the covers of its gills to frame its face like a gila monster. They will do this, predictably, to anything that resembles another male betta fish-- so, a mirror, a bright piece of paper, toenails painted blue, a human face, a Labatt Blue bottlecap, .. etc, etc. etc.
Now, Alexander, our big blue betta fish, will flare at anything. He hungers for human flesh and when I feed him, tries to take off my finger. He has leapt out of the water to bite my finger. He flares every time anyone walks past. he hates me more than anything, he hates the lamp, he hates the bookshelf, he hates my sweater, he hates the light switch, he hates the bottlecaps, he hates my toenails. He is one mean old fucker.
The other fish is Gibson. When we got Gibson, he was white. (Interestingly, once we began feeding him more nutritious food than the pet store, he changed color from white to blue and is now a speckled turquoise with translucent fins that show pink when backlit. He's quite pretty, in an ugly kind of way.) He was also agoraphobic, and would hide under the gravel in his tank. (Yes. Weird.) When I put his bowl near enough to Alexander's that Al noticed him and, predictably, flared, Gibson tried to jump out and kill himself. Gibson is mentally challenged. We think he was abused as a spawn. When I showed him a mirror, he tried to jump out and kill himself. When I wiggled my fingers, he hid under the gravel. Gibson was, in short, defective.
Well, no more.
Gibson FLARED at me today!!!
He's not broken! He's a normal fish!
Dave claims he's been flaring at him on and off all week, as Dave sits on the couch next to him, but I haven't seen it. Today I sat down and Gibson saw me and puffed out his fins and flared at me.
Wow, my fish isn't retarded anymore.
Betta fish are good pets because they require little care and can live in quite a small bowl with no filtration system. I neglect them shockingly, I am sure. But I needed some sort of pet or I would go insane, and the frogs turned out to be too high-maintenance. (Sure, their cages seldom needed cleaning, but they needed live food. Which is not easy to get when you have no car.)
Betta fish are also called Siamese Fighting Fish. They are native to the rice paddies of Thailand. There, they live in oxygen-poor water and are fiercely territorial. They have been bred by humans because 1) they are beautiful, and 2) they will fight to the death if two males are put together in a tank. Apparently these fights are entertaining to watch, a la cockfights. I wouldn't know about either, but I suppose it's amusing that I've kept both chickens and now fighting fish in my lifetime. (Left to their own devices, yes roosters will fight, but not to the death. Cockfighting is unnatural. In the wild, bettas usually fight until one flees. In a tank, one can't flee. The other will eat him.)
Betta fish are of value to sociologists, apparently, because part of their fighting is the aggressive display they do first. It is called "flaring" and involves the fish extending all of its fins to their fullest extent (impressive, as they have beautiful fins) and flaring out the covers of its gills to frame its face like a gila monster. They will do this, predictably, to anything that resembles another male betta fish-- so, a mirror, a bright piece of paper, toenails painted blue, a human face, a Labatt Blue bottlecap, .. etc, etc. etc.
Now, Alexander, our big blue betta fish, will flare at anything. He hungers for human flesh and when I feed him, tries to take off my finger. He has leapt out of the water to bite my finger. He flares every time anyone walks past. he hates me more than anything, he hates the lamp, he hates the bookshelf, he hates my sweater, he hates the light switch, he hates the bottlecaps, he hates my toenails. He is one mean old fucker.
The other fish is Gibson. When we got Gibson, he was white. (Interestingly, once we began feeding him more nutritious food than the pet store, he changed color from white to blue and is now a speckled turquoise with translucent fins that show pink when backlit. He's quite pretty, in an ugly kind of way.) He was also agoraphobic, and would hide under the gravel in his tank. (Yes. Weird.) When I put his bowl near enough to Alexander's that Al noticed him and, predictably, flared, Gibson tried to jump out and kill himself. Gibson is mentally challenged. We think he was abused as a spawn. When I showed him a mirror, he tried to jump out and kill himself. When I wiggled my fingers, he hid under the gravel. Gibson was, in short, defective.
Well, no more.
Gibson FLARED at me today!!!
He's not broken! He's a normal fish!
Dave claims he's been flaring at him on and off all week, as Dave sits on the couch next to him, but I haven't seen it. Today I sat down and Gibson saw me and puffed out his fins and flared at me.
Wow, my fish isn't retarded anymore.
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no subject
Date: 2005-02-13 03:50 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-02-13 04:06 pm (UTC)I also believe a "coupe" is a kind of sports car.
But I am not sure.
I am more worried about Alexander's hunger for flesh than Gibson's becoming normal. But I will keep an eye on both of them, believe me.