Pretty carp

[saxmatt]

Originally Posted by thmyorke1

You have any idea why they bred these carp that way? Koi are pretty, I get that, but why breed it with a carp with ugly scales? Why not a koi + a common carp?

Think of carp like the dogs of the fish world. They can interbreed to make some weird looking animals. Over many years people bred carp big to eat, small so we can keep them as pets like a goldfish, competition for best looking fish resulted in koi, carp with less scales are easier to fillet and cook resulted in mirrors. All of these different carp can still interbreed but have slightly different traits just like dogs. People have been bringing over different kinds of carp to NJ since the mid 1800s. There are carp mutts of different shapes and sizes all over our state. The "Carp" that can't breed with these are the grass carp, the bighead carp that is causing problems in the midwest which is an invasive species completely unrelated to carp other than by name, and the buffalo carp which is also unrelated to carp and is actually a native species to the US.