Around the beginning of summer this year, I happened to come across a very interesting video of a fish on YouTube. It was a video of wild betta fish, which is also my life's work. Betta smaragdina lives from northeastern Thailand to Laos, but its color and tail shape are different from conventional fish. Smaragdina originally has a beautiful green body color, so it is also called the emerald betta in English. However, the fish has a very large area of ​​green body color, and is it an improved variety? It was so beautiful that I thought.
Also worth noting is the shape of its tail fin, which in adults grows into a beautiful spade shape. I have seen Smaragdina in various places, but this is the first time I have seen a fish with a tail like this. This fish was collected in a place called Buriram in northeastern Thailand, and videos of children collecting it from a wetland were also uploaded to YouTube. The person who uploaded the video named this fish Buriram Super Green Power, and said that he had not bred it with any other betta fish. I have certainly seen many wild betta fish and improved betta fish, and even with my own eyes, I couldn't sense a hybrid feel to this fish.

I fell in love with this fish at first sight, so I asked my buddy Tong, who lives in Thailand, to contact the person who posted this video. Fortunately, Tong was able to contact this person right away, and he made arrangements for him to meet him when he went to Thailand. In October, I had a chance to go to Thailand, so I decided to go to see the person who uploaded this beta to YouTube. He lives in a place called Chachoengsao, about an hour's drive from Bangkok. I have visited this area several times when collecting Betta Siamese orientalis. The house was located in a corner of an upscale residential area with tight security. We greeted each other in the Thai style, welcomed us in with a smile, and quickly introduced ourselves to each other. His name is Nikhom Chaiin, and he is said to be 44 years old. He does not breed these betta fish as part of his job, but seems to be enjoying them as an extension of his hobby as a home breeder.

At Mr. Nikom's house, a nesting bed for betta fish was built, and it was filled with Smaragdina from Buriram, which he had dreamed of. I immediately removed the partition between the tanks and took a look at the fighting fish. More beautiful than I imagined! That was my first impression. Due to timing, there were few adults and only young individuals, but the green color was truly super green. It's shining brightly. By the way, when I asked why this fish was named Buriram Super Green Power instead of Buriram Super Green, I was told that the name Super Green was used elsewhere, so it was to distinguish it from that name. Because most of the fish were young, there weren't many with the distinctive spade tail, but you can clearly see that the center of each fish's tail fin is beginning to elongate. Even when I saw it with my own eyes, I couldn't detect any hybrid smell from this fish. As you can see in the video, there are some individual differences in body color.

I asked Nikom a variety of questions about this fish called Buriram Super Green Power that he introduced on YouTube. The first thing I was curious about was whether this fish was wild or an improved variety. When I asked about it, I was told that this Spadetail Smaragdina, which has a strong green body color, actually lives in Buriram's habitat. Among them, he selects the most beautifully colored individuals, crosses them, and breeds them to produce the fish he keeps at his house. When I asked how many generations it took to create this beautiful fish, I was told that it was only the second generation. The second generation means less than a year. Therefore, since it is of this grade, it can be assumed that there was an individual with quite high talent to begin with. At Nikom's house, breeding containers were lined up in the garden, and some of the containers contained young fish. I was able to scoop up an individual called Motochika and show it to him, and it was a wonderful individual, with a great body color and elongated tail fin.

When I asked Nikom about his first encounter with this Buri Ram betta fish, he said it was back when he was 8 or 9 years old. She remembers his mother collecting this betta fish in her neighborhood when he was a child and showing it to her, and she started collecting it again as an adult. is. After moving to Chachoengsao about 4-5 years ago to work at a Japanese company, he began to raise betta fish from his hometown in earnest, and he also started posting information about it on YouTube. be.
This video, which is shocking to betta lovers, seems to have been viewed and played by many people. It seems that there are many enthusiasts like myself who contact me and ask questions. Everyone seems to want to know the detailed information about Buriram's habitat, but it seems that he has not disclosed it to anyone because it is his top secret and trade secret. I fully understand that, so I don't want to do something shameful and step into it with my bare feet.

In the past, when I discovered the habitat of a Betta macrostoma, I was embarrassed by the people who approached me to find out information about the habitat. However, as a Betta fish fan, I am sure that I would like to see with my own eyes where this attractive betta fish lives and what it looks like in the wild. As we visited and talked with him twice, Mr. Nikomu promised to show us around Buriram's habitat in the near future, as if his enthusiasm had been conveyed to him, so we will also publish that information here. I may be able to do it. Lastly, I would like to take this opportunity to thank Mr. Nikomu for giving me his precious fish for the photo shoot and for taking time out of his busy schedule to talk to me about various things.