Call me crazy, but I’ve always wondered this. Are they found in the wild anywhere? If not, how do we have them, and where did they come from? How in the hell do we have so many of them? Yes, I know you BUY them from a pet store, but where do they COME from? Stupid question, yes. Currious to get an answer, hell yeah!
I was just told that they come from some magical land filled with beautiful fountains full of goldfish? This can’t possibly be true can it!? :eek:
http://www.ifc.tas.gov.au/fact_sheets/goldfish.html
That magical land is Asia. They have some nice fountains, some with goldfish…
Gulp. OK, here goes…
First of all, a daddy goldfish and a mummy goldfish decide that they love each other very, very much. So much that they feel it would make everything really neat if only they had a baby goldfish to make their lives complete. Then the daddy goldfish sits down in an armchair that the mummy goldfish had been sitting in only just recently, so that it was still warm from her body. And nine months later the stork leaves a baby goldfish right there on the doorstep wrapped up with ribbon - blue for a boy goldfish and pink for a girl.
Goldfish are related to carp, another popular ornamental fish. Carp were selectively bred to produce koi, large colorful fish extremely popular in Asia, and now in North America and Europe, too. Wild goldfish are about the same size as regular goldfish, but are a greenish-brown color for camouflage purposes. They are native to Asian streams, but can now be found wild in most of the world. They were selectively bred for bright colors, the most popular being orange (hence the name) several centuries ago in Asia. They have been kept as pets ever since, with more and more varieties being bred every year.
Carp are symbols of strength, wisdom and longevity, and so by extension are goldfish. Carp are long-lived and intelligent- people have rained pond carp to come to the surface at the sound of a whistle, and the oldest documented living carp died at age 52, althoug claims of 100 years or more are fairly common.
Your average pet store goldfish comes in two varieties: the smaller, more stream-lined and less colorful varieties being sold as feeder fish. (These are also the type you win in little plastic bags at fairs.) The other, and more expensive type are the ‘designer’ goldfish, larger, very colorful, some with bulging eyes, strange-shaped heads, long fins, etc.
Both types are mass-bred in commercial fisheries that supply the pet trade.
Goldfish are a species of carp, carassius auratus, that have the interesting genetic property of mutating like crazy. While varieties like the Moor, the Lionhead and the Bubble-eye (my favorite) are so distinct as to appear to be different species, in reality they’re sort of “artifical races” constructed by careful selective cross-breeding of specimens with unusual or desirable traits. The hobby originated in China and is possibly thousands of years old: the Celestial eye goldfish dates back to the Imperial era.
Goldfish cannot exist in the wild. If a fancy variety is released into a pond or stream they will revert to ordinary brownish carp in just a few generations. The only exception appears to be the type known as the Comet, an American variety which is amazingly stable genetically and can grow to be quite large when released from the confines of a tank.
Other varieties of ornamental carp exist, such as the abovementioned Koi, aka Cyprinus carpio. They can reach 3 feet in length and are astonishingly affectionate. One specimen known to me (a “house Koi,” if you can imagine such a thing, who lived indoors in a vat during the winter) would eat food out of your hand and actually enjoyed being pet.
Ahem, excuse me for nitpicking, but Everton’s answer cannot be correct, since I believe it is well known that fish are more or less colorblind. Therefore, the pink ribbon/blue ribbon claims become quite suspect. While the rest of his explanation might be true, I have to wonder about the last bit.
…that and the stork EATS goldfish.
Baby goldfish are found in small puddles in the cabbage patch.
From here
I thought they came from Pepperidge Farm?
I like the Pizza flavoured ones, myself.