Macropodus is the paradise fish genus, a group of labyrinth fish (family Osphronemidae, the gouramis and their relatives) native to East Asia — the atlas records the genus from Vietnam, China, Hong Kong, Japan, both Koreas, and Taiwan. Like other anabantoids they carry a labyrinth organ that lets them gulp air at the surface, which allows them to survive in shallow, weedy, poorly oxygenated water such as rice paddies, ditches, ponds and slow streams. The atlas covers 9 species, from about 1.5–3.5 in, several of them narrow-range East Asian species rather than the single widespread fish most hobbyists picture.
Macropodus opercularis, the paradise fish, is one of the oldest ornamental fish in the Western hobby — it reached Europe in the 1860s, decades before most other tropicals became available, prized for its vivid banding, flowing fins, and unusual tolerance of cool water and rough conditions. Males build bubble nests at the surface and can be pugnacious toward other males and even other fish, so paradise fish are usually kept alone or as a single male with females rather than in a mixed community tank. One species in the genus carries CARES conservation priority in the atlas — a signal of restricted range or wild decline even where formal reassessment lags, since several Macropodus species here are still Not Evaluated or Data Deficient rather than assigned an IUCN category.