can wild bettas crossbreed?

[mvh pets]

hi, i  recently got a pair of captive bred imbelis bettas to breed, however i accidentally received a male imbelis but a female alien blue betta, can they still safely breed?

thanks!  

[ARMYVET]

Thats a good question....I do not see why they wouldn't be able to.  I am sure somebody else with more info will chime in with an exact answer though.

[mountaintoppufferkeeper]

On 7/11/2021 at 10:39 AM, mvh pets said:

hi, i  recently got a pair of captive bred imbelis bettas to breed, however i accidentally received a male imbelis but a female alien blue betta, can they still safely breed?

thanks!  

I have not focused on betta but did manage to breed the brunei beauty before. Safely breed would be something you would need to determine as it is more in the eye of the breeder in my view. I believe the alien betta is already a hybrid of a few betta species in the betta genus to get that cool look so would assume continued hybridization would be similar results. Maybe post this one in the post for consideration for that live club talk on Betta occurring next week.

If a hybrid is created from species within the same genus it is my understanding that it "may be fertile" but that also means they could be infertile. I would expect that I might not get fully viable eggs or might get some rate of infertile offspring in my generations of that cross which could be connected to the hybridization. I probably wouldn't worry about it and would give it  a shot to see what happens. I would just share the genetic history with anyone i moved them to.  I am interested to see how this is answered by those with betta experience. 

[Crabby]

I believe alien bettas are a crossbreed of wild bettas, including imbellis, so I would expect that they can indeed breed. I would look for a refund if I ordered an imbellis pair and got an alien.

[AnimalNerd98]

From my initial Googling, Alien bettas are basically the Flowerhorn equivalents of Anabantoids. I see some sources saying that the Alien betta is a Betta splendens complex with some traits from B. mahachaiensis and B. smaragdina. However, it is totally plausible that it could have some B. imbellis genes as well. 

Biologically speaking, I think they should be able to reproduce and produce viable offspring.
Personally speaking, it may be more trouble than it’s worth to carry out the breeding. If you just want to try it out and see what comes out, go ahead, it could be a fun project.

If you were planning on selling the fry, it would be difficult for you to sell them since they would be essentially hybrids of a hybrid. You would have to list them as something like Alien Betta F x Imbellis M fry.