The is a short deep-bodied fancy

goldfish The goldfish (''Carassius auratus'') is a freshwater fish in the family Cyprinidae of order Cypriniformes. It is commonly kept as a pet in indoor aquariums, and is one of the most popular aquarium fish. Goldfish released into the wild have ...

with a characteristic hump in the shoulder region.Andrews, Chris, Dr. An Interpet Guide to Fancy Goldfish, Interpet Publishing, 2002. - Johnson, Erik L., Dr. D.V.M. and Richard E. Hess. Fancy Goldfish: A Complete Guide to Care and Collecting, Weatherhill, Shambala Publications, Inc., 2006. -

Description

The ryukin is a hardy and attractive variety of goldfish with a pointed head and has a pronounced hump on the back behind the head. It may be long-finned or short-finned with either a triple or quadruple tail. The

dorsal fin A dorsal fin is a fin located on the back of most marine and freshwater vertebrates within various taxa of the animal kingdom. Many species of animals possessing dorsal fins are not particularly closely related to each other, though through conv ...

is high while the

caudal fin Fins are distinctive anatomical features composed of bony spines or rays protruding from the body of a fish. They are covered with skin and joined together either in a webbed fashion, as seen in most bony fish, or similar to a flipper, as se ...

is often twice as long as the body. The caudal fin may also have three or four lobes. Ryukins come in deep-red, red-and-white, white, silver, blue, black, orange, lavender grey,

iron Iron () is a chemical element with symbol Fe (from la, ferrum) and atomic number 26. It is a metal that belongs to the first transition series and group 8 of the periodic table. It is, by mass, the most common element on Earth, right in f ...

and

calico Calico (; in British usage since 1505) is a heavy plain-woven textile made from unbleached, and often not fully processed, cotton. It may also contain unseparated husk parts. The fabric is far coarser than muslin, but less coarse and thick than ...

coloration. The ryukin is a fine

aquarium An aquarium (plural: ''aquariums'' or ''aquaria'') is a vivarium of any size having at least one transparent side in which aquatic plants or animals are kept and displayed. Fishkeepers use aquaria to keep fish, invertebrates, amphibians, aq ...

fish that can reach up to 8 inches (21 centimeters) in length. Some ryukins are reported to grow up to 10 inches in large aquariums and commercial ponds.

History and origins

The Ryukin is Chinese in origin. It is unknown when the ryukin was bred but it is most likely a mutation of the

Wakin The wakin is an intermediate twin tailed goldfish variety that has been originated from Japan. It is believed the wakin gave rise to fancy twin-tailed goldfish, including the ryukin, ranchu, oranda, fantail pearlscale, and many more twin-tailed ...

.About the Ryukin
retrieved on: 24 Aug 2018 It has been so named because it was said to have arrived in

Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...

through the

Ryukyu Islands The , also known as the or the , are a chain of Japanese islands that stretch southwest from Kyushu to Taiwan: the Ōsumi, Tokara, Amami, Okinawa, and Sakishima Islands (further divided into the Miyako and Yaeyama Islands), with Yonaguni ...

, now Okinawa Prefecture, which lies between

Taiwan Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia, at the junction of the East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocean, with the People's Republic of China (PRC) to the northwest, Japan to the nort ...

and

. There were historical references that the existence of ryukins dates back to 1833, but it is said to have arrived in Japan in the 1770s. Early Japanese literature refers to the ryukin as the onaga (longtail) or the nagasaki goldfish. In English texts, they are also referred to as the Japanese ribbontail, the fringetail, the fantail or the veiltail.

Variants

* Yamagata kingyo (yamagata goldfish) or

sabao ''Sabao'' (薩保, ''Sàbǎo'', "Protector, Guardian") was an official Chinese title in the 5th-7th centuries CE, used for government-appointed leaders of the Sogdian immigrant-merchant community. The word ''sabao'' is derived from the Sogdian ...

(mackerel tail) or tamasaba - a hardy single-tailed variety of the ryukin that has been developed in the

Yamagata Prefecture is a prefecture of Japan located in the Tōhoku region of Honshu. Yamagata Prefecture has a population of 1,079,950 (1 June 2019) and has a geographic area of 9,325 km² (3,600 sq mi). Yamagata Prefecture borders Akita Prefecture to the north, ...

of Northern Japan. *Tetsu onaga (iron-colored longtail) - a rare iron-colored variety of the ryukin.

References

External links

Bristol-Aquarists.org

retrieved on: 4 June 2007.

retrieved on: 4 June 2007. {{Goldfish breeds