Carp/Koi History

[junglegeorge12]

Here is some info you might find interesting Ray. I t suggests the widespread breeding of food carp in Poland, Hungary, and czechloslovakia for centuries. Those lakes and others are where I traced the origins of koi to in a not so serious search a whole back. There are some large lakes in t6hat region formed by meteorites that I think they came from originally. Many of the rivers out of those lakes head toward the east.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20051222...h_051222161429

Some countries eat carp for christmas!

[saratogatan]

My limited knowledge on chinese history says that between 500 to 300 years ago, china had a ban of sea travelling along her coastline. So it would have been extremely hard for carp to travel from China to Japan during that time period. Although japanese pirates were raiding coastal china during that same time period, I don't see pirates having much eyes on carp. If carp had to travel from china to Japan, it would have been earlier or later.

I am also not so keen on the carp travel from central asia to china thought. The earlies record in chinese literature on colored carp dated 3000 years ago, in a poem like this:
a friend from far away visited me
he gave me 2 colored carp with patterns
a roll of cloth was found in the carp
in the letter he said he missed us

and the chinese word on carp was formed more than 3500 years ago, I don't know of any human migration with fish record in history. However, there was a strange record in chinese history, in the han dynasty, noting a special tribe in the north-westhern china (Russia today) fighting in a 'weird horse cart', wearing bulky metail armor, and swinging long pole, no one has followed that trait, but it has some historical coincident with Roman empire expnasion, maybe those people brought to china, but..

I like the myth-like mystery on koi-carp relation, it make this hobby so much more beautiful. However, my tranining in science and engineering is killing me that I like to see someone doing a DNA spectrum analysis to pin down the track koi has taken.

stan

[James P]

1) the magoi was in Japan way before 500 years ago! Let me rephase that- way, way longer---

2) the Chinese have at least five species and subspecies of carp, including the ancestor of the goldfish ( Cass.)- in fact, some of these species are more common in places like the yellow river than are the true common carp.

3) DNA would do no good as we know that the fish in the tributaries surrounding the black and Caspian seas are the foundation stock for common carp from all over the world. Include doitsu carp from Austria and you realize that the genes are universal yet different in allele count even from kohaku to ogon.

[Regenmeneer]

James, could you elaborate on the doitsu and Austria thing. Because the funny thing is, this morning, or better last night, I ran into a quiz by a dealer on the www, and that was the only question I failed to answer correctly. Of course, knowing the meaning of Doitsu, my answer was, wait for it....Germany (Deutschland).

Regenmeneer

[James P]

Right, the term is 'German' scale for sure. But in 1904 the Austrian bred leather and mirror carp were brought into Japan as a gift for the Japanese Fisheries Institute by the curator of the Kingdom of Bavria Museum ( 40 pieces of which four leathers and one mirror survived the journey)

Going back to Germany,in 1782, it was a black magoi mutation that first appeared in Austrian breeding stock. And so it is Austria that gets credit for 'making' the ' German' carp.

[junglegeorge12]

I read something a while back that talked about the contribution the meteorite formed lakes and their composition made to the development of carp and goldfish. I suppose it must have created a whole network of interconnected sea, lakes, rivers, springs, and streams. If you look at the waterflows and rivers in that region they all connect, from germany all the way to China and russia.

Both the Black and Caspian seas have rivers running in all directions connecting to other smaller seas and lakes from northern europe to eastern china.

There are very old lore, poems, songs, and folk tales from europe in that region that talked about the many colors of the carp and the mirror carp.

I woud bet you can find mineral deposits from those meteors in rivers and lakes in china.

[James P]

Uhh, yea right, and what does heat bring? High temperatures that can--- wait for it---wait for it---- create Ceramics from common minerals !!! All roads lead to FIR! Can naval experiments be far behind! LOLs JR

[MikeM]

Ummmm.... Is that "naval" or "navel"? Or, do they differ?

[junglegeorge12]

Not sure I follow your connection there JR, who brought up heat?

But indeed, heat can be used to make ceramics, or hairpieces. I have not found any naval research on hairpieces yet though.

One my favorite subjects in school was history. Intelligent men both make and learn from history and avoid repeating it, less intelligent men are bound to living off of mere spinal cords and repeating history and the words of others like parrots.

Hey JR, have you ever thought about using a waterfall on a pond to run a paddle wheel that runs a generator capable of running the accessories and an electric water heater? Imagine if we coupled it with two or three of those and a windmill or four, recapturing the energy the pump uses and adding to it both gravity and windmill captured energy and have enough left over to run the pond and part of our home on? Or should we give in, let the earth subdue us, and throw away all of our enjoyable stuff, eat celery sticks and meditate on how smart our navels have become?

If you study history, you will find mankind has an assigned task to subdue the earth and always finds ways to overcome obstacles so we can enjoy life, live comfortably, and have things like ponds and other gadgets to play with and enjoy.

I got an email from a greenleafer yesterday who thinks we should all fill our ponds in and 'conserve' energy. In other words, give up, cave in, wimp out, and lead boring, defeated lives. I for one, am glad the Navy is here to provide solutions instead of celery sticks and pacifers. Defeated little whiney babies always need pacifiers.

I talked to another more intelligent man last night who is renting windmill and solar powered power plants to casinos and businesses and neighborhoods and simply charging them 30% less than the power company does. He makes money hand over fist, yet greanlef boy says it cannot be done for less than ten times the amount a power company charges......my friend is making enough money off of it to have multiple nice vacations homes in resort areas and travels at will, so which one is right?
Anyway, merry christmas!

[PapaBear]

Interesting and informative. Connects some of the previously researched dots rather nicely.

JG. Greenleafers have a bad habit of surrendering to fear and only being satisfied when the rest of us declare defeat. Your entrepeneurial friend would undoubtedly be condemned and decried as a tool of evil capitalists by the socialist wing of the greenies.