Koi

Overview

Koi are ornamental varieties of the Amur carp, developed in Japan starting in the early 19th century from food carp that displayed unusual color mutations. Breeders selectively refined these mutations into today's dozens of recognized color patterns - kohaku, showa, and sanke among the most prized - which are still judged competitively at shows in Japan. Koi are exceptionally long-lived and develop genuine recognition of individual keepers, often gathering at a pond's edge when a familiar person approaches. Koi carry two pairs of barbels at the corners of the mouth, which goldfish lack, and they are among the few fish that koi herpesvirus kills, a disease goldfish can carry into a koi pond without showing signs.

Quick Facts

History

The founding mutations turned up in an unlikely place: the snowbound villages of Nijuumura, in what is now Nagaoka and Ojiya in Niigata Prefecture, where farmers kept carp through the winter as a food supply. The fish stayed a local curiosity until the Tokyo Taisho Exposition of 1914, where about twenty of them were shown under the older name kawarigoi, won a silver medal, and were seen by some of the roughly 7.5 million people who attended. Crown Prince Hirohito, later Emperor Showa, had them brought to the Imperial Palace, which is what turned a regional farm product into a national art form. Japan set a formal agricultural standard for nishikigoi only in 2022.