Peter Ng and Maurice Kottelat have clarified the naming of the Betta waserispecies
group, probably best known to we hobbyists, as the big, yellow,
mouth-brooding Bettas which occur in Malaysia and Indonesia. These are
mouthbrooders without iridescent gill covers (such as are possessed by B.pugnax)
although the males do have scattered iridescent gold scales on their
flanks. They have a brown body with one stripe running from eye to tail
spot, and another narrow one just above the anal fin. The lower lip is
black and the throat has various oval black marks. In the past they
have been referred to as, 'Betta macropthalma' ( a synonym of B. pugnax) or as B. anabatoides. Betta waseri was
first described from aquarium specimens but only one was preserved.
This was about 9 cm, although the largest wild specimen is only about 8
cm standard length. The main character is its distinctive throat
marking, a black lower lip with two black, tear-drop spots on the
throat. Males have sharper heads than females and the latter have more
distinct stripes. The original locality near Kuantan is now heavily
disturbed but specimens were also found 30 Km from Kuantan on the road
to Pekan. Here they occurred in slowly flowing shaded black forest
streams of pH 4-5 with leaf litter beds, among roots. Other anabantoids
occurring here were Betta bellica, B. tussyae, Parosphromenus nagyi, Sphaerichthys osphromenoides, Trichogaster trichopterus and Belontia hasselti. The 7 cm Betta hipposideros is
a new species which takes its specific name from the horse-shoe like
throat markings. It has a ladder-like pattern of vertical bars on the
tail membranes of both sexes. It occurs in blackwater peat swamps of pH
3.5-3.7 in Selangor and Perak along with Betta bellica, B.livida, Parosphromenus harveyi, Sphaerichthys osphromenoides, Trichogaster leeri, T.pectoralis, T.trichopterus and Belontia hasselti. Betta tomi is a new species, named after professor 'Tom' Lam Toong Jin of Singapore University. Like B.hipposideros, it is shorter at 7 cm and stouter than B.waseri but
it lacks the ladder markings of the caudal.. The throat has two oval
spots which do not merge with the lower lip. It was collected in Johor,
in shaded, shallow streams of a freshwater swamp forest in pale
tea-coloured water with a pH of 5.5 along with Betta pugnax andTrichogaster trichopterus.
Males have a broad, dark-green margin on the anal fin. Specimens taken
in Singapore by Herre co-incide with this species but it no longer
occurs on the island. Betta spilotogena is
a new species, 7 cm long, which takes its name from the spots on the
gill-cover. The throat has 2 broad oval spots which may join to each
other, but not to the lip. It occurs in the Riau archipelago,
Indonesia, specifically Pulau Bintan, in shallow tea-coloured water of
pH 4.9-5.5. There are clearly more species of this group yet to be described and I suspect that we can expect to hear more in due course. Reference
Ng,
P.K.L. and Kottelat, M. 1994. Revision of the Betta waseri species
group (Teleostei:Belontiidae). Raffles Bull. Zool. 42, 593-611. DMA.