To my mind this casts doubt on the placing of goldfish and Crucian carp in a separate genus from the common carp. If they can produce fertile hybrid offspring I'd think that Carassius is probably superfluous - perhaps the goldfish will be reclassified one day as Cyprinus auratus.
Koi/Goldfish Hybrids
- Thread starter Flaringshutter
- Start date
Not necessarily. Sadly for most breeders, taxonomist usually do not take into account sexual reproduction when declaring a species. There are many different species that can freely be crossed between them even if they are classified under different genus.
For examples in tomatoes they have between 8-10 different species (depending on what paper was published most recently). All of these species are cross freely with no sterility in the offspring. The squash/pumpkin family is similar although some sterility between species is common. Melons on the other has everything lumped together. Cantaloupes, honeydews, casabas, charentais, galias, Armenian cucumbers, and many different names are all under the name Cucumis melo. Cucumbers are called Cucumis sativus but crossing of the two in impossble.
Goldfish are also also very adaptable with the number of chromosomes. They can have a 2n o= 48, 50, 96, 100, & 150. This of course makes goldfish genetics a royal pain in the *beep*.
BTW with fertile hybrids it is possible to transfer alleles from one species to another. Think of all the cool color patterns/scales that koi have and imagine them on a goldfish. It would take a lifetime to do but it might be fun.
