11: Bighead Carp

Hi friends,

I write to you from Arapahoe, Ute, and Cheyenne land. I am interested in learning about the different animals that live in the place where I was born. I want to mention that biological classification as taught by western science has its roots in racism, sexism, and transphobia – here’s a good explainer about why.

Today’s animal is the Bighead carp (Hypophthalmichthys nobilis), a large, plankton-feeding fish with distinctive, downward-pointing eyes. Bighead carp don’t have a “true stomach” – so they must feed continuously. This led me to wonder if I, too, did not a “true stomach” but it turns out that the animals without stomachs are platypuses, echidnas, and about 25% of all known fish.

Another fascinating fact about bighead carp: they like to spawn in turbulent rivers and floods are a cue to spawn!

They are an invasive species not only in Colorado, but in the western hemisphere as a whole – their native range is southern/central China. They were first recorded here in 1980. I thought this record of their human-led invasion of the United States by the USGS was fascinating: “Means of Introduction: Bighead carp were first imported into the United States in 1973 by a private fish farmer in Arkansas who wanted to use them in combination with other phytophagous fishes to improve water quality and increase fish production in culture ponds… The species first began to appear in open waters, the Ohio and Mississippi rivers, in the early 1980s, likely as a result of escapes from aquaculture facilities (Jennings 1988)… The species may have dispersed into Oklahoma waters from fish illegally brought into southeast Kansas by a commercial fish farmer in 1988 (Pigg et al. 1993)… The species was illegally stocked along with grass carp in one or a few ponds in California; these were brought into the state by a commercial aquaculturist. The live fish were reportedly transported in a concealed compartment under a load of black bass in the fall of 1989 from a fish grower in Oklahoma or Arkansas (Dill and Cordone 1997).  The species was illegally stocked in Cherry Creek Reservoir, Colorado (P. Walker, personal communication).”

The live fish were reportedly transported in a concealed compartment under a load of black bass in the fall of 1989

OK GUYS BE QUIET, STAY HIDDEN… NO, DON’T SWIM UP, STAY UNDER THE BASS

Tomorrow we will meet a member of the Mustelidaie family.