boy or girl? a bit stumped

[Celeste84]

well i got a wild type female from my LFS, only now i'm not so sure what it is!

it seems to have the body and fins of a male. but it has a visible ovipositor, doesn't flare or build bubble nests, and gets along great with all bar one of the girls.

here are some pics.

i should add i took these pics minutes after a good feed of blackworms, hence the bulging tummy. normally it's a very flat tummy :rolleyes:

[Sara_01]

i would generlly sy mle just by the look of the fins, but in the first pic he/it/she seems to hve eggs and like you said the ovipositor is very visible. just doesn't seem to have that male 'sass' about it either. technical i know. i guess u'e already tried having her near a male? also i know it's a poor indiction coz both sexes do it but generally the females stress stripe more easily

[Celeste84]

LOL the eggs are just from where it ate the bloodworms i'm afraid - that bulge wasn't there prior to feeding ;;

and yeah, no reaction to other males or a mirror, but it has never had stress stripes either - even when i bought it home and dumped it in with the other females it was that colour, albeit half the size.

doesn't really act subordinant to the dominant female - it clearly LIKES that female but it doesn't get bullied or act submissive, and it only flares at the long tailed female who i'll admit is really nippy. the other girls it tends to ignore :-/

[Jess]

Looks like a pretty splendens boy Celeste. He is very pretty

P.S love that mouth wide open shot!

[Celeste84]

thanks fae! i thought it looked like jaws then LOL

yeah i was kinda stumped as i KNEW it was a boy physically, but it's even more passive than the girls so i was a bit thrown off by that.

glad to know others with more exp than me think he's a he

he's gonna stay in with the girls though LOL i've no more room for boys and he's doing just peachy in there anyways! might breed him later on just to see what i get, dark fish are always nice.

[Betta_Endeavours]

I've picked up a couple of plakat males that were living as females lol. Give them their own space and they soon change lol.

[Bettarazzi]

Yeah... I reckon if you jarred and carded him for a week he'll start to get a lot more macho. It would interesting to see how long you could leave him in with the females. My guess is that you could leave him in there for quite a while.

[Sara_01]

i can't believe we see this so often, do you think the suppliers realise they re sending male pk as females? petshops are generally so uneducated when it comes so bettas im tired of telling them they really should seperate that tank of males only to be told oh no females can live together. these are females, males always have long fins and females never have bright colours. they are only down the rod from me, they are so rude i only go there if i have to, one day im gonna stroll on down there with the fanciest female i have and a pk male and make the pair spawn in front of them!!!

[splendidbetta]

Very nice male :)

[Celeste84]

to be honest, when i got him he DID look identical to a female because they were so small, so it' not the pet stores fault, and quite frankly for $5.95 i won't argue LOL plus my LFS has had PK males in before so they're well aware there are short finned males

yeah i was thinking that since he was raised with females he would continue to get along with them it's quite nice to see how well he gets long in the tank, but i also realize that if he was ever separated from them he'd need his own tank ;

and thanks :)