Male or female?

[FairyFish]

Bought this cute little fish at Petsmart today. He/she was labeled as a “Male Dumbo Halfmoon”, but the fins seem to be very short to me, especially for a Halfmoon? Not sure if that’s just from stress or if ‘he’ is actually female. Help is greatly appreciated!

 

[CassCats]

Definitely male.

I've outlined the body cavity shape here for you. Males have rounded body cavities, while females have a sharp bulging triangular point instead due to their ovaries.
Males, being male, lack these ovaries so just have the rounded body shape here.

Half moons aren't necessarily long finned! It refers to the shape of the full extended tail fin, it spans in the shape of a crescent moon, but this can be long or it can be short (plakat). Yours has the shorter tail. Shorter tailed bettas tend to be healthier and better swimmers as their tails don't catch on things in the tanks.

 

[fishorama]

What a pretty boy! I agree with Cass. I always love her red highlighting & how we can learn what is the important part(s) in pics.

 

[FairyFish]

Definitely male.

I've outlined the body cavity shape here for you. Males have rounded body cavities, while females have a sharp bulging triangular point instead due to their ovaries.
Males, being male, lack these ovaries so just have the rounded body shape here.
View attachment 357613


Half moons aren't necessarily long finned! It refers to the shape of the full extended tail fin, it spans in the shape of a crescent moon, but this can be long or it can be short (plakat). Yours has the shorter tail. Shorter tailed bettas tend to be healthier and better swimmers as their tails don't catch on things in the tanks.

Thank you SO much! I’m still pretty new to Bettas, so I really appreciate you taking the time to explain!!

 

[emeraldking]

The problem within the retail business when it comes to bettas, is that when they order females, most of the times there are young males in between. This is simply because young males tend to look like females before they show their male traits. After keeping those for just half a century and 15 years of that time frame also breeding them, I also can say that even young males despite of the fact that they look like females do show their male behavior at som e point.
My parents are from mixed descent and are immigrants from Indonesia. Overthere they had bettas all the time. So, once they started keeping fishtanks in the 1960's in Holland, a betta has always been around.