Why are elephant ear bettas usually a purple color?

Hello all! It’s been a very long time since I’ve been active, my apologies for that… life got super busy with school and everything. Bit of a random discussion question, but why are elephant ear bettas usually a lavender color? I know that purple is a rather rare color in bettas, but it seems every time I’m at the pet store I see at least one lavender colored elephant ear betta. So what makes them different from other bettas, besides their “elephant” fins?

 

You can find them in other colors (from yellow to blue to red). I imagine a lot of the purple ones are specifically inbred for that colour/fin combo

 

Idk about purple but I see a burgandy red is a more common shade in their line and they tend to have an interesting creamy iridescence to them. Not sure what the correct term even is. Similar to this one. In person body is not purply but that Burgundy red with the silvery creamy iridescence as an overlay and on the “whites” of fins

 

Most of the purple bettas i see are elephant ears...purple body with white fins. No clue why, it just is! Might be more common to certain areas though, too. Purple bettas sell pretty quick around my area it seems.

 

I never thought about that! My current elephant ear ( pic 1) is nearly blue ( like a dark powder blue) but definite purple undertones in color.

Percy my late male was mauve purple
Persephone mauve purple
Penelope light purple, cream stripes - but she was not a normal elephant ear - tail fin was different and she never reached a robust size. I think she was a mutt , not a pure line.

 

Oh that betta is so pretty! I would love to get an elephant ear, I adore the purple color

 

Interesting! My dumbo girl is lavender. I had a look back at the website where I ordered her - they have over a hundred elephant ear bettas for sale, and almost all of them are shades of pink and purple. There are a handful of patterned or red ones too, but they seem to be the minority.

I'm guessing the dumbo fins must be recessive, which would explain the limited colour palette.

 

I see them on ebay in gold/yellow, blue, white, pink, salmon, red - all sorts of colors. I even noticed one that had a blue butterfly pattern, a candy koi one, and some that have the marbeling pattern. According to one of my books about bettas, they did start out being a "salamander" color, whatever that means...

But now, they are available in multiple colors and types. They are really lovely!

 

I had never really thought about that before! my best guess would be genetics though, from my experience if you breed two bettas of the same colour (and the line down also is also that colour) the majority off the offspring will also be that colour or similar. now there are more colours but I agree purple does seem to be the most popular.