today was canada day, a beautiful, sunny day spent checking out the parade and festival honouring our country. we walked for about 5 hours today and finally made our way home. tired and sunburnt i relaxed and checked my email. surprise surprise, a message from marianne at bcbetta.com. way back in april she had promised to look into getting me some imbellis from the las vegas betta show, well, her source never seemed to get back to her and marianne and myself gave up on my dream of my owning this elusive breed. well, it turns out that another source made herself available. a breeder in washington state (who doesn't have a website but shows her "wilds" at the betta shows) sent marianne some bettas and they arrived today 
i was told that if i wanted a trio of wild (but captive bred) imbellis to get back as soon as possible as other people would take them if i didn't. it didn't take me 10 seconds to get on the phone to marianne and it didn't take me more than 30 minutes to rush out (after an exhausting day in the sun no less) to her house. glorious day indeed. the breeder had also sent about 14 betta falx juveniles (hmm, i wonder if this is the same source that julie got her falx from?). while the falx were intriguing my mind was already made up about the imbellis of course. 
two females and one male, all swimming happily together in one tank. the price was a bit steep (in the end $50 canadian, i didn't have to pay the $30 shipping because the fish were delivered late and marianne figured she could get the money back on that). marianne also gave me some floating plants and a live culture of daphnia and bottle of green water for free. pretty cool. i have to admit i had my doubts about the fish being imbellis at first because they looked so pale and colourless and the head shapes were rounded, very strange, usually, plakat heads are well, kind of pointy with upturned mouth. these guys heads were rounded and sloped down at the front, and the mouths were not upturned but rather right up front (reminds me of betta macrostema). it didn't really matter if they didn't turn up being imbellis because i was sure they were "wild" regardless, you just can't find fish like this at any of the LFS around me here in vancouver. i got them home a couple of hours ago and aclimatized them to the tank temperature here before taking them out of the bags. i'm happy to say they are free swimming now and busy checking out their new surroundings. i know for sure that they are imbellis now because for one, the male has a very distinctive red point to his anal fin and more imporatantly, blue green irredescent stripes on his gill covers. i decided to keep them together and see how things go, i have a feeling the original breeder had them together too as they show absolutely no hostility to each other and swim around together as a group. (lucky guy, two girl friends). i will be breeding these fish for sure anyways (i'd like to wait till the batch of crown tails i have right now are done growing up first though). umm, if anyone wants to see pics, i can probably borrow the work camera this weekend....
i was told that if i wanted a trio of wild (but captive bred) imbellis to get back as soon as possible as other people would take them if i didn't. it didn't take me 10 seconds to get on the phone to marianne and it didn't take me more than 30 minutes to rush out (after an exhausting day in the sun no less) to her house. glorious day indeed. the breeder had also sent about 14 betta falx juveniles (hmm, i wonder if this is the same source that julie got her falx from?). while the falx were intriguing my mind was already made up about the imbellis of course. two females and one male, all swimming happily together in one tank. the price was a bit steep (in the end $50 canadian, i didn't have to pay the $30 shipping because the fish were delivered late and marianne figured she could get the money back on that). marianne also gave me some floating plants and a live culture of daphnia and bottle of green water for free. pretty cool. i have to admit i had my doubts about the fish being imbellis at first because they looked so pale and colourless and the head shapes were rounded, very strange, usually, plakat heads are well, kind of pointy with upturned mouth. these guys heads were rounded and sloped down at the front, and the mouths were not upturned but rather right up front (reminds me of betta macrostema). it didn't really matter if they didn't turn up being imbellis because i was sure they were "wild" regardless, you just can't find fish like this at any of the LFS around me here in vancouver. i got them home a couple of hours ago and aclimatized them to the tank temperature here before taking them out of the bags. i'm happy to say they are free swimming now and busy checking out their new surroundings. i know for sure that they are imbellis now because for one, the male has a very distinctive red point to his anal fin and more imporatantly, blue green irredescent stripes on his gill covers. i decided to keep them together and see how things go, i have a feeling the original breeder had them together too as they show absolutely no hostility to each other and swim around together as a group. (lucky guy, two girl friends). i will be breeding these fish for sure anyways (i'd like to wait till the batch of crown tails i have right now are done growing up first though). umm, if anyone wants to see pics, i can probably borrow the work camera this weekend.... 
That's awesome news, I'm jealous, as is everyone else! 
However, I know there are a few other wild breeders up here too, so perhaps it was one of them. I just might have to look into this... I'd love to have some imbellis too. 
their bodies are long and skinny, and like i said before, their heads look kind of "stumpy" 
