Betta pi

The fighting fish

It can grow to a maximum length of 9.0 cm (3.5 in).

Range and habitat

It is found in the Pru Toe-Daeng peat swamps in Narathiwat Province in Southern Thailand, but its range also extends into northern Peninsular Malaysia, most notably the states of Kelantan and Terengganu. It is primarily found in well-shaded peat forest blackwater swamps and creeks where the pH can be as low as 3.0 or 4.0.

Pins are Wikidata “endemic to” fields. Orange dots, when present, are GBIF occurrence tiles — survey bias included.

Diet and breeding

Being a mouthbrooder, Betta pi has a breeding process that is very typical of mouthbrooding fish of the Betta genus. Following a protracted courtship, eggs and milt are released during a stage where the male is wrapped around the female.

The male might have to wrap around the female several times before spawning happens. The adults tend not to eat the fry, and some breeders have reported them to develop at a faster rate when left with the parents.

In crisis

Betta pi is threatened with mostly habitat destruction by human activity, with large tracts of forest being cleared for the rubber and palm oil industries.

Betta pi is Endangered on this catalog because that is the IUCN category stored on Wikidata. Confirm the official criteria and any later count on iucnredlist.org.

Sources

Written for this catalog from the English Wikipedia article on Betta pi, Wikidata item Q5761554. Family and order context is original field-guide writing about the group, not a copied assessment of this one species. Wikipedia text is CC BY-SA. Not an IUCN assessment. Counts, when quoted, can change — confirm them on the recovery programme and on iucnredlist.org.