Is this betta a dragonscale?

Hey, I have a newer hobby of rehabilitating bettas from pet stores and getting them to good new homes. There's this guy in Petco who looks like he could use a chance, and he's only swimming along the bottom of his cup so he might have some swim bladder disease to treat. But my main issue is that he looks like he could be a dragonscale.

As you can see from the attached images, he has some very shiny, whitish scales on his body, very well defined with what looks like some dark coloring under them. I'll ask the Petco employees if they know, but in case they don't can any of you confirm if he is a dragonscale or not? I do want to try to help him, or at least let him expire peacefully in a nice big tank, but if I do get him rehabilitated and to a new home I don't want to mislead the new owner(s), since dragonscales go blind eventually and generally have shorter life expectancy.

Looks to be, dragonscale/delta tail/dumbo ear.

Ah damn, I already got him. I suspected but I couldn't just leave him there. Also the cup did say he's an elephant ear.

“Dragon scale” is just a term for what color the Bettas skin is between their scales. He is a dumb ear/delta tail, which is a common mixture.

Dragonscale bettas have very thick scales, and yes they do have problems with their eyes as the scaling grows over them. I had one dragonscale which had one eye totally covered and the second eye had just a tiny bit left uncovered. Another was starting to grow scaling over his eyes by the time he died.

This is the one which lost almost all his eyesight


And this is the one who had started to grow the eye scaling (he's also the one who had the lump which finally invaded his gill)

PheonixKingZ said:

“Dragon scale” is just a term for what color the Bettas skin is between their scales. He is a dumb ear/delta tail, which is a common mixture.

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Dragon scale is actually because the thickness of the scales mimics what we'd belive the scales of a dragon would look like

Essjay said:

Dragonscale bettas have very thick scales, and yes they do have problems with their eyes as the scaling grows over them. I had one dragonscale which had one eye totally covered and the second eye had just a tiny bit left uncovered. Another was starting to grow scaling over his eyes by the time he died.

This is the one which lost almost all his eyesight
View attachment 129561

And this is the one who had started to grow the eye scaling (he's also the one who had the lump which finally invaded his gill)

View attachment 129562

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ooooooooo what macro camera do you use? ( not camera, lens)

The photos were taken with this camera on macro setting https://www.dpreview.com/reviews/fujifilms7000/ The lens etc were whatever came with the camera when it was made.

My husband bought it in the mid 2000s, then he got another so he gave this one to me. It stopped working a couple of years ago - some card or chip inside the models made at the time my husband bought his was later found to be faulty, I'm surprised it lasted as long as it did.

The photos of the white/red/grey betta (he was a tricolour butterfly dragonscale) are cropped from larger images just to show his eyes.

Essjay said:

The photos were taken with this camera on macro setting https://www.dpreview.com/reviews/fujifilms7000/ The lens etc were whatever came with the camera when it was made.

My husband bought it in the mid 2000s, then he got another so he gave this one to me. It stopped working a couple of years ago - some card or chip inside the models made at the time my husband bought his was later found to be faulty, I'm surprised it lasted as long as it did.

The photos of the white/red/grey betta (he was a tricolour butterfly dragonscale) are cropped from larger images just to show his eyes.

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That’s very interesting that dragon scales do that. I never knew the scales could actually grow over the eye.

PheonixKingZ said:

That’s very interesting that dragon scales do that. I never knew the scales could actually grow over the eye.

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Thats the major drawback of dragon scales. Its because of over breeding. Same reason that bettas get fin rot just by looking at them for too long. Such weak genetics now

EllRog said:

Thats the major drawback of dragon scales. Its because of over breeding. Same reason that bettas get fin rot just by looking at them for too long. Such weak genetics now

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That’s a bummer.