I have owned a betta fish for 8 years now, In case you didnt know a Betta is a large colorful freshwater ray-finned fishe in the gourami family (Osphronemidae).
oh wow i didnt know they can live that long. I have one at the office thats a year old and i was guessing it would die soon
Oh thats sad, But with good care they can live up to 10 years in some cases. 
why is that sad? I feed it and take care of it, I just didnt think it would live as long as it has.
as "B. picta". The mouthbrooding species are sometimes called "pseudo bettas", and are sometimes speculated to have evolved from the nest-builders in an adaptation to their fast-moving stream habitats.
A phylogenetic study published in 2004 concluded tentatively that bubble-nesting was the ancestral condition in "Betta", and that mouthbrooding has evolved on more than one occasion in the history of the genus. However it was unable to establish a correlation with any of three habitat variables studied: whether a species was found
Betta
Betta, is a large genus of small, often colorful, freshwater ray-finned fishes, known as "bettas", in the gourami family (Osphronemidae).
The best known "Betta" species is "B. splendens," commonly known as the Siamese fighting fish.
Characteristics.
All the "Betta" species are small fishes, but they vary considerably in size, ranging from under 2.5 cm (1 in) total length in "B. chanoides" to 14 cm (