''Cyprinus rubrofuscus'', the Amur carp, is a species of

cyprinid Cyprinidae is a family of freshwater fish commonly called the carp or minnow family. It includes the carps, the true minnows, and relatives like the barbs and barbels. Cyprinidae is the largest and most diverse fish family and the largest ve ...

fish Fish are aquatic, craniate, gill-bearing animals that lack limbs with digits. Included in this definition are the living hagfish, lampreys, and cartilaginous and bony fish as well as various extinct related groups. Approximately 95% ...

, and is the wild form of the well-known koi. It is widespread in the

fresh water Fresh water or freshwater is any naturally occurring liquid or frozen water containing low concentrations of dissolved salts and other total dissolved solids. Although the term specifically excludes seawater and brackish water, it does incl ...

s of

eastern Asia East Asia is the eastern region of Asia, which is defined in both geographical and ethno-cultural terms. The modern states of East Asia include China, Japan, Mongolia, North Korea, South Korea, and Taiwan. China, North Korea, South Korea a ...

, native to China,

Vietnam Vietnam or Viet Nam ( vi, Việt Nam, ), officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam,., group="n" is a country in Southeast Asia, at the eastern edge of mainland Southeast Asia, with an area of and population of 96 million, making it ...

and Laos from the

Amur The Amur (russian: река́ Аму́р, ), or Heilong Jiang (, "Black Dragon River", ), is the world's tenth longest river, forming the border between the Russian Far East and Northeastern China ( Inner Manchuria). The Amur proper is long ...

to Red River basins, and has also been introduced outside its native range. It is known for its muddy flavor and boniness, hence, it is not commonly eaten by locals except when stewed. In the past, it was considered a subspecies of the common (or European) carp, often under the scientific name ''C. carpio haematopterus'' (a

synonym A synonym is a word, morpheme, or phrase that means exactly or nearly the same as another word, morpheme, or phrase in a given language. For example, in the English language, the words ''begin'', ''start'', ''commence'', and ''initiate'' are al ...

), but the two differ in

genetics Genetics is the study of genes, genetic variation, and heredity in organisms.Hartl D, Jones E (2005) It is an important branch in biology because heredity is vital to organisms' evolution. Gregor Mendel, a Moravian Augustinian friar worki ...

Zhou, J., Wu, Q., Wang, Z. and Ye, Y. (2004). Molecular Phylogenetics of Three Subspecies of Common carp Cyprinus Carpio, based on sequence analysis of cytochrome b and control region of mtDNA. Journal of Zoological Systematics and Evolutionary Research 42(4): 266–269. and meristics, leading recent authorities to recognize them as separate species. Although earlier studies also have found minor differences between northern ("''haematopterus''") and southern ("''viridiviolaceus''") populations in Eastern Asia in both meristics and genetics, later studies have found that they are not

monophyletic In cladistics for a group of organisms, monophyly is the condition of being a clade—that is, a group of taxa composed only of a common ancestor (or more precisely an ancestral population) and all of its lineal descendants. Monophyletic ...

.Wang, C., Liu, H., Liu, Z., Wang, J., Zou, J., and Li, X. (2010). Mitochondrial genetic diversity and gene flow of common carp from main river drainages in China. Freshwater Biology 55(9): 1905–1915. However, any

phylogenetic In biology, phylogenetics (; from Greek φυλή/ φῦλον [] "tribe, clan, race", and wikt:γενετικός, γενετικός [] "origin, source, birth") is the study of the evolutionary history and relationships among or within groups o ...

structure is difficult to establish because of widespread translocations of carp between different regions. The parent species of the domesticated koi carp is an East Asian carp, possibly ''C. rubrofuscus'' (not ''C. carpio'').Craig, J.F., eds. (2015). Freshwater Fisheries Ecology. p. 297. Wiley-Blackwell. .

References

Cyprinus Freshwater fish of China Fish of East Asia Freshwater fish of Asia Taxa named by Bernard Germain de Lacépède Fish described in 1803 {{Cyprininae-stub