What Do You Know About The Common Carp (AKA, Bugle Mouth Bass)

By Craig Springer

Common carp were introduced to the United States in the 19th century and have since spread throughout the country. They live up to 38 years and can grow to nearly 90 pounds.

Seen as the greatest fish transplant attempt ever taken on, or the worst of government-sponsored ecological disasters. The fish is either a nuisance or great sport on the end of a line. If you’re an angler, you’ve probably caught one.

These things are certain: it’s a naturalized American fish, and the common carp is just that—common.

The Swedish medical doctor, Carl Linnaeus, who named you Homo sapiens, also penned the scientific name of the common carp. In his 1758 edition of Systema Naturae, he called it Cyprinus carpio to fall in with other members of the minnow family, the Cyprinidae. The nomenclature comes from the birthplace of Aphrodite, or Cypris, the goddess of love and beauty, the Island of Cyprus.

The common carp is one of hundreds of minnow species worldwide, and among the largest-growing of them all. And it is certainly the most widely distributed of minnows, if not all freshwater fish species, owing to its natural attributes and the works of people. When Linnaeus set a name to the common carp, it had already been transplanted to Europe for food.

The common carp appears in writing in China circa 500 BCE. Fast forward a thousand years to the Common Era, and common carp show up in writing in a circular to government officials in the Ostrogothic Kingdom, circa the year 500. Cassidorus, the secretary to King Theodoric of Ostrogoth, ordered high governing officials over present-day southern Europe to advance the supply of common carp for the king’s table.

The common carp is one of hundreds of minnow species worldwide.

The fish may have been suitable for the king’s table in a far-off land, at a time far removed from 19th-century America. But the populace in this republic resisted. Even recipes published by the Fish Commission couldn’t sway sentiment. Common carp never gained favor.

In the end, the success of the common carp in American waters is a testament to what not to do. Don’t spread fish around. Arguably, though, the common carp has become an American fish.

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