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Common carp — printable fact sheet
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Common carp
Cyprinus carpio
Cyprinus carpio is native to the Danube and the drainages of the Black and Caspian Seas, not to East Asia as often assumed, though it was domesticated independently in China and later in medieval European monastery ponds. It has no teeth in its jaws at all: food is crushed at th…
Did you know?
- Some common carp have been known to live for over 40 years in captivity, making them one of the longest-lived freshwater fish species.
- Common carp is one of the most farmed fish on Earth by tonnage, having been raised in ponds for well over a thousand years. In Australia's Murray-Darling system carp make up a large share of total fish biomass, and control by releasing a carp-specific herpesvirus has been formally debated at national level. A carp's sense of smell is acute enough that anglers' baits are designed around amino acid profiles rather than taste. The species can gulp air at the surface and survive in water that would suffocate trout within minutes.
What I learned
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