This year, hybrid wild bettas seem to be popular in Thailand.
Of course, new varieties don't just come out one after another, so hybrids may be a shortcut to quickly creating new and unique fish.
However, wild betta enthusiasts have long been accustomed to the pure breed style that emphasizes locality, so it is thought that many of them are not very accepting of hybrids.
Having said that, I personally believe that pure breeds are the best when it comes to wild bettas.
However, there are some varieties that have been born from hybrids, like aliens, so hybrids are not something that should be completely rejected.

This column104thThe hybrid of Siamese orientalis and Inbellis yellowtail introduced above was so beautiful that I was moved for the first time in a long time by its beauty.
If we think of wild as wild and hybrid as improved varieties, it should be acceptable.
This is the first time we are introducing a hybrid of Splendens and Inbellis, but in fact, we had already photographed two types of hybrids of Splendens and Inbellis last spring.
Although it was a beautiful fish, it somehow didn't have much impact, so I put it aside, planning to show it when the opportunity arose.

I visited Thailand in the fall of 2025 and was looking for some material when I finally got contacted by my usual wild-themed shop.
It was a hybrid of Splendens and Inbellis.
It was at the same store that I bought a hybrid of Splendens and Inbellis in the spring of 2024, so I thought I would decline, saying that I had already photographed it, but I was surprised when I saw the fish.
Completely different from the fish of a year ago, the tail fin has a red pattern reminiscent of the crescent moon pattern of Inbellis, and the anal fin also shows the red of Inbellis.
What's even more interesting is that there are blue types whose sides and fins are decorated in blue, and green types whose sides and fins are decorated in green.
This was a fish that struck a chord with me, so I bought two without hesitation.
However, since the female was still small, they asked me to wait about a month for her to grow up.

Now that we have the 2025 Splendence/Inbellis hybrid and the 2024 hybrid, I thought I would introduce them in this column.
The 2025 hybrid of Splendence and Inbellis is much more showy than last year's hybrid, and I thought that perhaps some special breeding had been done, so I asked the store owner who bred it how it was produced.
It seems that the male is a Benjarong-type Splendence and the female is a normal Inbellis, making it an F1.
I thought the breeding process might be more complicated, but it was surprisingly simple.

So what about the hybrid with a different color from last year? I asked, and was told that this was also produced using Splendens as the male parent and Inbellis as the female parent.
In other words, the phenotype of the F1 will vary greatly depending on the color of Splendence used as the male parent.
Also, this is just my imagination, but in the case of the 2025 hybrid, I wonder if Blue Inbellis was used for the female Inbellis?
This is because I got the impression that the body color of the hybrid blue type was very similar to that of Blue Inveris.
Perhaps it's not such a ridiculous idea.

Even when breeding using Splendens as the male parent and Inbellis as the female parent, there are quite a few breeding patterns.
Also, if you crossbreed with F2 or F3 instead of F1, various results will likely be obtained depending on the selective breeding method.
In fact, breeders may have bred differently this year because last year's hybrids were not well received.
The result was a more beautiful hybrid than last year, so it was a good decision.
Now, it will be interesting to see whether they will try new breeding next, or continue breeding based on the fish obtained this time.