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.