I know they don’t but why do people think that? I mean why is it a long lasting myth?
Chosen Answer:
It was probably a simply misunderstanding. You hear “rice paddy” and if you are not familiar with the flood irrigation and depth to water, one can easily picture a small puddle..or maybe people thought “paddy” was “puddle”.
Also, these fish are adapted to live in shallow waters for short periods when the flood plains have their dry season. So for a few weeks to months a year they can easily get stuck in smaller water areas. It probably is much easier to catch them in these low water seasons, so if you find a fish in a smaller pool of water all the time, one might think that is where the fish lives. Or one person sees another find a fish in there and assume it is like that all the time. It is like an alien coming to earth and thinking people live in cars or elevators because they saw people in one!
And perception is everything, once someone has that image, they will defend it….it is just personal perception and opinion, not based in fact, but the people will defend it like truth. Once something is in someone’s head, it gets very hard to remove it! Nobody likes to be wrong. IF that is “what they always thought” then trying to show them otherwise is often an uphill battle.
I’ve always wondered how any reasonable person could fall for it…I mean if a betta lived in separate little puddles their entire life, how on earth would they find each other to reproduce and how would the hatched eggs find their separate puddle??? Seriously, how could a species like that reproduce? And show me a puddle that small that never dries out? It would have to rain just enough to keep the puddle deep enough for a fish, but not rain so much as to connect the puddles. It just is completely illogical!
by: TheRav1n
on: 18th March 11
