A Fishy Saga
Posted by: Nick Redfern on May 30th, 2012
Over at Still on the Track, the Center for Fortean Zoology’s Jonathan Downes highlights the story of a weird-looking fish caught in a lake in Cambridge, England earlier this month.
As someone who writes about conspiracy theories, I suppose I could go off on some nonsensical tangent about how the creature is the result of a bizarre, gene-tinkering experiment at an underground lab in the UK and which, having now escaped from its confines, is set to create havoc all across the UK. But I won’t, because such a thing would be nonsense!
However, the story is still a very intriguing one. Anyone got any thoughts as to what this hybrid might actually be?
About Nick Redfern
Punk music fan, Tennents Super and Carlsberg Special Brew beer fan, horror film fan, chocolate fan, like to wear black clothes, like to stay up late. Work as a writer.
I thought it was very pretty. Perhaps a cross between a goldfish and koi. Or, judging by the prominence of the SATANIC rod, perhaps just a really good way for an advert to go viral.
Pretty cool looking. Head is more Koi/Carpish looking rather than the Roach he presumes.
I agree with flame. When I saw it it just looked like a fancy goldfish or a fancy goldfish/koi or carp cross. Look at how incredibly mutated some of the fancy varieties have become.
It is extremely improbable that this fish is a hybrid of three different species, and actually -despite the description in the original article – the head of this fish doesn’t really look that much like those of a roach at all, and the anal fin looks only similar to those of a bream because it is very large – as most of the other fins of this fish.
I suppose this could by a hybrid of a fantail goldfish and a crucian carp (Carassius carassius). Other hybrids between goldfish and crucian carps have been documented before, and they looked also similarly. Both species are closely related too.
Another possibility would be a crossbreed of a goldfish with a Prussian carp (Carassius gibelio), but I think a crucian carp x fantail goldfish is more probable.
My brother raised these once. It’s a bristol shubunkin.
It’s way too big, and it’s the wrong color, but it kind of looks like a gigantic Japanese fighting fish.
I don’t think it’s any sort of koi or karp hybrid, as they often have at least stumpy barbels, which are not present in this fish. It’s also obviously neither a shubunkin of any sort (which are typically quite colourful) nor any kind of siamese (not japanese) fighting fish. Here is some more information about hybrids of crucian carps with other cyprinids, including goldfish.
Sadly there is no photo of a hybrid with a fantail goldfish.
Another possibility would be of course this is really nothing but a quite large goldfish. If goldfish grow larger, their proportions change, and they look different from the goldfish most people are familiar with. Furthermore some wild born goldfish never become really golden (or otherwise coloured), but remain dark or bronze-coloured. A quite similar fish was caught some years ago in a small pond in Blyton near Gainsborough.
http://media.photobucket.com/image/hybrid%20fantail%20goldfish/whistlekiller/fantail.jpg
Bristol shubunkins are preferably quite colorful, some, however, are not. These are usually discarded on sight as not to pollute the gene pool, so to speak. I have seen them solid orange, solid black, and solid gray. These have no value to a breeder as they are worthless to serious enthusiasts who covet the ornamental look of a koi.
That is a large shubunkin that was released/ escaped into the wild and prospered. It is not a strange hybrid of different species of fish–unless it is a Gup-piranha shark eel swordtail.
Here’s a picture of a London Shubunkin that looks suspiciously like the unidentified fish.
What is it?
Just another reminder from Mother Nature that that “species” stuff is something we made up, not her.