The Mirror Carp
(Cyprinus carpio)

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Leather Carp - 31.5 LB
The mirror carp is slightly different in shape to the common carp. As a rule, mirror carp have a fuller, more rounded shape. A huge swollen belly is not uncommon in some larger specimens, although some can be quite slender if food is not plentiful.

Its golden brown skin is covered with varying amounts of different sized scales, these fall into six different scale pattern groups:

  1. The fully scaled mirror : Fully covered in different sized scales.
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  3. The Leather carp : Completely scaleless, occasionally has a line of small scales on its sides.
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  5. The Plated mirror : Has a one or a group of huge scales on each side.
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  7. The Scatter scale : Normally has a line of scales running both sides, flanking the dorsal fin and odd scales dotted at random.
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  9. The Linear mirror : Long line of scales along lateral line, small groups of scales at tail and dorsals.
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  11. The Star burst mirror : Basically a scatter scale with the addition of small scales in a star-burst pattern on the lower half of the body.