New Leather goldfish (more clearer photos)

Leather goldfish

Out of a tank of about 80 goldfish, I managed to find 8 more leather goldfish and 2 more mirrorscale (linear) goldfish on Saturday 25 July 2009.

This batch has a lot of the finless leather goldfish (except the tail), and very similar to the one I once kept more than 15 years ago. However, these 'finless' leathers are still more steady in their swimming abilities than the one I had. They are also healthy despite their deformities.

Furthermore, in this batch of leathers, the pectoral fins are more often reduced to stubs, instead of small deformed pectoral fins like the other 2 leathers I had (this includes the fully dorsaled leather fish, which is the fish in the right of the top photo which shows them still in the bag. The middle photo in the bag shows the leather with one dorsal rib, and an orange/brown one underneath. That is the most coloured one out of this batch of leathers. The ones I saw and the one I had in the early 1990s were fully depigmented.

The 'bottom up' photos show the stubs when compared to the linear goldfish, ie, missing ventral and pectoral fins. They also show they are not blue bellies (ie, mock metallics or pseudo matts), but are just metallic goldfish if they had scales.

In brief, (See my March blog for further genetic details of leather goldfish), the leather goldfish is a further scale variation from the mirrorscales. Unlike mirrorscale, which shows a single variation in the s gene (which determines the location of the scale), leather goldfish requires variation in 2 genes in combination, the s and n gene (n= nude, no scale). Otherwise no leather goldfish can result, thus explaining their rarity. Apart from the fact that farmers may discard them as they are often deformed.

Their lack of finnage is the same as encountered in European carp c carpio, but in carp this is not as severe as what we have in goldfish (Kipichnikov (1937) investigated this in detail for c carpio). The lack of fins is due to biochemical inhibition, reducing effect on various organs (termed pleiotropic effects from the scale gene mutation).

One of the leather is coloured orange brown (shown most clear in the bag photos), and another a tinge of yellowish/orange brown, the rest were generally wild bronze to olive green. Some are very stocky in built. I have now a total of 10 leather goldfish at the moment.

Two out of the ten leathers that I got have complete dorsal fins, the rest have one to two hard rays in the dorsal to others having no dorsals at all.

There are both males and females in this batch of eight leather goldfish.

I took about 50 photos and they are much clearer in quality this time round (some shown here).

The smallest fish out of the 10 goldfish I bought this time round is the smaller of the two mirrorscale goldfish, it is just under 1.5 inches.

The chance of me maintaining a line of leather goldfish is now more hopeful as now I have a good quantity of them and sufficient variation in genetic material to avoid too much inbreeding.

© 27 July 2009 Bill L

Leather 'scale-less' Goldfish (with photos)

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Top Photo: on left (still in the bag) is the small bronze linear scale comet, middle fish is the dorsal-less leather specimen 1, the fish on the right is the leather specimen 2 (the leather goldfish with the dorsal fin).


Leather 'scale-less' Goldfish (with photos)

After having not seen leather goldfish for around 15 years, I managed to find two specimens of leather goldfish again! The term leather refers to a scaleless goldfish (as documented in my earlier blog on 7 March 2009, and please see that blog for further detail genetic discussions). Like the leather carp, it has next to no scales on its body.

The two leather specimens I purchased were among a a tank of normal common/comet goldfish. Both were bronze silver grey (wild) in colour. They are young juveniles, and may depigment later.

In that tank which housed the 2 leather goldfish, I also purchased a smaller linear scaled (mirrorscale) goldfish (also bronze in colour). Therefore, I bought 3 goldfish from that tank. In another tank from the same retailer, I bought a larger red and white linear scale comet goldfish. Therefore I bought four goldfish in total on 11 July 2009, two linear and two leather goldfish.

Of the two leather goldfish, specimen 1 is shaped similar to the leather specimen I had around 15 years ago (as depicted in my line sketch which is shown in my 7 March blog). Specimen 1 also does not have a dorsal fin, only hints of remnant stubs where the dorsal is (like the leather goldfish I had before more than 15 years ago). It also has only one ventral fin, the other ventral fin is a very small fin/stub. The anal fin is very deformed also and small. It does have small pectoral fins, but also deformed (about half the normal length and overall size). The tail fin is normal common goldfish size.

Specimen 2 of the leather goldfish is quite normal. It does have a dorsal fin, but is missing some fin ribs (exactly as what Kirpichnikov described for leather carps). Apart from the pectoral fins being deformed and are quite small (like that of specimen 1), otherwise all the other fins are intact. It's tail length is intermediate of that of comet and common goldfish. It is quite a normal looking fish apart from the small pectoral fins and the lack of scales.

Of the 2 leather goldfish, specimen 2 swims more steadily when compared to specimen 1, as it has a more complete set of fins. Both leather goldfish are wild bronze olive grey in colour. Leather specimen 1 is more brownish bronze, while specimen 2 is more greenish yellow.

It is quite a joy to see leather goldish again and I have took a set of photos THIS time to make sure their existence is captured in photos.

What is interesting to observe that after 15 years, these leather goldfish have a more complete set of fins than the leather goldfish I had more than 15 years ago, ie, have either small pectoral, ventral, anal and/or dorsal fins. It also appears that for the defomity of fins in the leather goldfish, the dorsal and pectoral fins have the tendency to be the most deformed (see the top-down photos at bottom).

I hope these two leather goldfish will live and prosper through this winter in Melbourne, Australia now and breed in the spring of 2010 (Sept - Nov 2010), as they are too young to breed this coming spring in 2009. Their genetic make-up is unique for goldfish and I hope to preserve them and perpetuate this scale variant for the future.

Below is a set of photos I took of the two leather goldfish (with the two linear scale goldfish), and to prove that leather goldfish do exist, no matter how rare they may be.

PS: I have changed my email to: mirrorscale@live.com.au

© 12 July 2009 Bill L

Top down view: bottom fish on left is the linear scale comet, next to it is the linear red and wite comet, the fish near centre top right is the leather goldfish (Specimen 2 with the dorsal). The fish furthest on the right is the dorsal-less Leather goldfish (specimen 1). Note the deformed pectoral fins of the leather specimens when compared to the normal pectoral fins of the two linear scaled goldfish.