I see A LOT of people tossing the term around lately, and i'm really unsure if they are using it correctly or not. Just because your fish changes colors does not mean he is a marble, correct? I know a lot of fish that get past 3 month start changing into their "permanent" colors when they hit a year they slow down a bit. But I thought there was more to a marble betta than just changing colors, with this new fad taking hold i'm afraid that people are being incredibly misinformed.
http://www.theaquariumwiki.com/Betta_splendens_-_variations#Marble
"White or salmon pink faced Bettas in which the colours are splashed or blotched with no defined borders between the body and the fins or tail.
Two types of Marble Betta exist:
a) the traditional Marble or Piebald, which is a dark bodied fish with a white head or face and lacking in the colours red, green, blue and steel blue; and
b) the Coloured Marble. The fins of the choice Coloured Marble show a sharp-edged mix of light and dark colours (red, green, blue, and steel blue) and the face and chin are white or pink / salmon coloured."
http://watershed3.tripod.com/types.html
"Marble
The marble betta was created in the beginning of the 1970s by Orville Gulley, a prison inmate at the penal institute in Indiana [3, 8]. Orville as breeding betta here in peanut butter jars, as part of a rehabilitation program. The story goes that Orville was trying to create a black butterfly betta which then led to the discovery of the marble gene. Walt Maurus and a handfull of other breeders started to breed the marbles for pattern and this lead to the distrubution of the marbles all over the United States. The orginal marbles were black and white but now they are available in virtually every color imaginable.
In young marbles bettas the marble pattern can shift from week to week and once the fish matures most of the times the pattern is fixed.
The marble mutation appears to be a partly dominant gene, the marble (Mb) gene, which has a highly variable expression. When marbles are introduced into a true-breeding solid colored line, it is becomes very difficult for the breeder to return his stock to a non-marble true-breeding solid colored type."
http://bettysplendens.com/articles/page.imp?articleid=859
So these people that see their young fish grow and change colors think it's a marble, when it's clearly not? Am I wrong here, or?
http://www.theaquariumwiki.com/Betta_splendens_-_variations#Marble
"White or salmon pink faced Bettas in which the colours are splashed or blotched with no defined borders between the body and the fins or tail.
Two types of Marble Betta exist:
a) the traditional Marble or Piebald, which is a dark bodied fish with a white head or face and lacking in the colours red, green, blue and steel blue; and
b) the Coloured Marble. The fins of the choice Coloured Marble show a sharp-edged mix of light and dark colours (red, green, blue, and steel blue) and the face and chin are white or pink / salmon coloured."
http://watershed3.tripod.com/types.html
"Marble
The marble betta was created in the beginning of the 1970s by Orville Gulley, a prison inmate at the penal institute in Indiana [3, 8]. Orville as breeding betta here in peanut butter jars, as part of a rehabilitation program. The story goes that Orville was trying to create a black butterfly betta which then led to the discovery of the marble gene. Walt Maurus and a handfull of other breeders started to breed the marbles for pattern and this lead to the distrubution of the marbles all over the United States. The orginal marbles were black and white but now they are available in virtually every color imaginable.
In young marbles bettas the marble pattern can shift from week to week and once the fish matures most of the times the pattern is fixed.
The marble mutation appears to be a partly dominant gene, the marble (Mb) gene, which has a highly variable expression. When marbles are introduced into a true-breeding solid colored line, it is becomes very difficult for the breeder to return his stock to a non-marble true-breeding solid colored type."
http://bettysplendens.com/articles/page.imp?articleid=859
So these people that see their young fish grow and change colors think it's a marble, when it's clearly not? Am I wrong here, or?