Banded Gourami Identification Guide

Key identification features

• Elongated, laterally compressed body, olive-gold to greenish base color
• Seven to eight oblique dark diagonal bands running down the flanks
• Long, thin, thread-like pelvic fins used to feel out surroundings
• Pointed anal fin, often edged in red or orange on breeding males
• Small, high-set dorsal fin; males show a bluish sheen when mature
• Reaches about 8-13 cm, males larger and more colorful than females

Common look-alikes

• Three spot gourami: shows two round dark spots on the flank instead of diagonal bands
• Dwarf gourami: has bolder red-and-blue diagonal stripes on a more rounded, smaller body
• Honey gourami: plain golden-orange body with no banding at all

Where you'll see one

Banded Gouramis live in still and slow-moving fresh water such as ponds, ditches, and flooded rice fields across the Indian subcontinent, from eastern Pakistan through India to Bangladesh and Myanmar. Their labyrinth organ lets them gulp air at the surface in low-oxygen water choked with vegetation, allowing them to persist in seasonal pools that many other fish cannot tolerate.