Question: The Japanese Fighter Fish or commonly known as the “Betta” should have teeth right? This carnivore loves to eat meaty foods even though most beginner aquarists feed them pellets. This got me onto the question of these fish having teeth or not… A lot of very aggressive fish don’t have teeth so the Betta could still get by not having any.. guess this raises the question, do they have teeth?
*Awarded Answer
Posted by Jackie L.
Turns Out they Do Have Teeth. These little demons have small little white teeth and I think that’s awesome. These teeth are so small that the human eye cant see them. It’s pretty obvious these little carnivores need teeth to eat the foods they do. Live brine shrimp, mosquito larvae and more. When I look at a female Betta it’s hard for me to see how they have teeth because of how beautiful they are haha. (btw image source is bettafighting.com)
Posted by Sarah J:
I came to this page looking to answer the same question and it seems that my little boy named “Ricky” does have small teeth. I always wondered if he had the opportunity to come bite me if he would or if he wouldn’t. It’s a good feeling knowing that my fish can’t really harm me. It almost seems like they use more of an aggressive “pop” when they attack their food doesn’t it?
Reply from Kenny Yiuang:
I know what you mean by that attacking “pop” sound at the surface of the water they make when they are attacking their food. My bettas get more aggressive the longer amount of time it has been since they have eaten last (somewhat obvious) but it’s fun to watch. I’m surprise nobody has a good picture of the teeth of their Betta. I would think if someone used a magnifying glass on a dead fish.. you could see them.
Posted by Erica Pianger:
I have just spent the last couple minutes trying to search over the entire Google image search trying to find a good image of what these teeth could possibly look like but there seems not to be a good picture. You would think that somebody would take one of their fish that just died and take a magnifying glass and snap a picture of what these fish teeth look like. Because even though we know that these fish do have them I would like to see an in-depth look of what style they have if they are sharp like a carnivore or if they are more dole like herbivore.
Posted by Natasha W:
I’ve been telling my little boy to watch his small fingers around the fish because I was afraid of them biting his fingers. I don’t think it’s very likely know that I have read this article although if you do get on some of the communities some members are claiming that the fish it their finger and it didn’t hurt but the fish wouldn’t let go. Even though it’s somewhat of a scary sight I don’t think it would really mean that much as long as it doesn’t hurt or penetrate the skin.
Posted by Nathan K:
I have very large Cichlid species fish and they bite me and that doesn’t even hurt. The only thing that scares me is actually looking at the fish and seeing it visually come up and attack me because even though you can feel it just feels like a small nibble. But then when I looked to see what is happening on my arm the fish are attacking my hand and then it scares me mentally more than it did physically.
Posted by Vinny Aera:
When I did some research on trying to find an image I found two images that kind of gave a good example of what these teeth look like. I learned that betta fish do have teeth. They are not the best images in the world and just like somebody else said someone should use a magnifying glass and take a picture of that but he still do a little bit of justice to where you can visually see the teeth.