TY  - JOUR
A1  - Balon, Eugene K.
T1  - The common carp, Cyprinus carpio : its wild origin, domestication in aquaculture, and selection as colored nishikigoi
T2  - Guelph ichthyology reviews
N2  - Paleogeographical, morphological, ecological, physiological, linguistic, archaeological and historical evidence is used to explain the origin and history of the domestication of the wild common carp. The closest wild ancestor of the common carp originated in the drainages of the Black, Caspian andAral seas and dispersed west as far as the Danube River and east into Siberia. The common carp today is represented by the uncertain east Asian subspecies Cyprinus carpio haematopterus and by the European Cyprinus carpio carpio. There is some reason to think that Romans were the first to culture carp collected from the Danube, and that the tradition of the "piscinae dulces" was continued in monasteries throughout the Middle Ages. We have much better documentation of carp culture in ponds of lay and clerical landowners in western Europe after the 11 th century. Distribution of the common carp west of the Danube's piedmont zone was clearly brought about by humans, as was its introduction throughout the continents. Some domestication in China may have occurred independently of similar activities in Europe, but most of the modern-day activities with the common carp in far east Asia are restricted to the domesticated common carp imported from Europe, or at best to hybrids of local and imported strains. The xanthic (red) common carp seem to have first appeared in early cultures of Europe, China and Japan but reached their fame through recent artificial selection of multicolored aberrants in Niigata Prefecture of Japan. In monetary value, production of the colored carp - the Japanese "nishikigoi" - now exceeds the production of carp as human food. As "swimming flowers" nishikigoi delight modem people as much as the taste of carp may have delighted the Romans and medieval folks at the beginning of carp domestication. The common carp is not only the most important domesticated fish but contributes over I million metric tons to world aquaculture. The surviving wild forms of the common carp are threatened or close to the fate of the aurochs, the ancestor of cattle, which became extinct in 1627.
KW  - Morphometry
KW  - Taxonomy
KW  - Life history
KW  - Danube River
KW  - Fish culture
KW  - Archaeology
KW  - History
KW  - Ancestry
KW  - Aurochs
KW  - Cattle
KW  - Vernacular names
Y1  - 2009
UR  - http://publikationen.ub.uni-frankfurt.de/frontdoor/index/index/docId/10956
UR  - https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:hebis:30-1119611
SN  - 1181-8549
N1  - Signatur: SRq 1552
IS  - 3
SP  - 1
EP  - 55
CY  - Guelph, Ontario
ER  -