Scale carp: Cyprinus carpio communis

 

Synonyms:
Cyprinus carpio: Linnaeus, 1758.
C. carpio intha: Annandale, 1918.

Common name: Common carp (English name)

Bangla name: Common carp and Japani rui

Taxonomic position:
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Osteichthyes
Order: Cypriniformes
Family: Cyprinidae
Sub family: Cyprininae
Genus: Cyprinus
Species: C. carpio
Variety: C. carpio  communis

Morphometrics description: Body elongated and head comparatively very small. Dorsal of the body is very convex and abdomen bulky. Body is compressed and snout rounded. Whole body covered with moderate size scales. Abdomen rounded. Dorsal side of this fish is brownish.

Fin formula:
D. 3-4/14-19, P₁. 1/16-18, P₂. 1/7-8, A. 2-3/5.
D. 3-4/18-20, P₁: 1/15, P₂: 1/8, A. 3-5 (Talwar and Jhingran, 2001)

Scales number on the lateral line series is 30 to 41. Scales number mentioned by Talwar and Jhingran (2001) is 30-40 scales on the lateral series.

 Habit and habitat: Bottom dweller and detrivorus fish. Ponds, rivers, lakes, canals, beels, baors etc. both open and closed water bodies.

 Breeding time: Usually breeds in rainy season. This exotic carp species is now well known in Bangladesh. Seeds can be produce by induced breeding technique. Now found all over Bangladesh especially all culture ponds and baors (Talwar and Jhingran, 2001).

 Economic importance: Scale carp is a cultruable highly growing species. Very delicious food and protein supply a huge number of the people (Rahman, 2005).

Ecological role: Common carp takes plankton and detritus at the bottom of the water body. It cleans the water body from unhealthy aquatic vegetation by up rooting plants at the time of searching in culture pond if this species stock excessive number (Talwar and Jhingran, 2001).

 Marketing status: Market price is varied between 90-110 Tk/kg.

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References:

Annandale, 1918. Rec. Indian Mus., 14(1): p. 47.

Linnaeus, 1758. Systema Nature, ed. 10, 1: p. 320

Rahman, A.K.A. 2005. Freshwater Fishes of Bangladesh. The Zoological Society of Bangladesh, Dhaka. p. 18.

Talwar, P.K. and Jhingran, A.G. 2001. Inland Fishes of India and Adjacent countries. Oxford and IBH Publishing Co. Pvt. Ltd. New Delhi. p. 18

Photo credit: Shams Muhammad Galib

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