The epic history of goldfish—pet and pest

As a science historian, you’ve written about esoteric subjects like 17th century mollusk expert Martin Lister. Goldfish seem comparatively banal. I gather there’s a personal backstory.

Goldfish are basically carp. The Chinese originally bred them to eat. Carp, which are normally grey or green, breed like crazy, and you get variations of colors and shapes. Nature plays around. They have a smattering of pigment cells that are red or gold. A mutation would have suppressed the grey pigment cells, allowing the yellow and red ones to be expressed. Humans took a mutation and made a species of them.

Losing their mystique and exoticism along the way, no doubt. At one time, you write, the United States government gave them away.Illustration by James Petiver, Courtesy The Royal SocietyIn a publicity stunt, from 1884 to 1894, if you were a resident of Baltimore or Washington, D.C, and wrote your congressman, the U.S. Commission of Fish and Fisheries [today the National Marine Fisheries Service] would send you goldfish. Some 20,000 were given away each year before the program was discontinued.

Wow

Goldfish are carp. They'll eat anything.

The more adult u r, the more u realize that some pets deserve to extinct. It's because human breed them to be deformed. To be in forever pain. Weirdly, some human call them cute. Dumb n cruel human.. Pug, pitbull, etc. Including goldfish. Look at the eyes there. So deformed.

🦉

❤❤❤

what is this picture

People need to stop placing goldfish in rivers and lakes. This harms the ecosystem.

Wow! fascinating cultural history of gold fish. Loved every bit of the story.

Comme ça, à vue de nez, je dirais que ce poisson est constipé. Un avis LilyKandyn ?

man that goldfish looks dumb!

trout pout is all the rage. it will not starve 💋

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