To prevent getting lost, the elevator goes directly to Liu Yadong A, the reporter of Safety Island
I wonder if you've ever seen this fish?
Blood parrot (Credit: The Aquatic Coder/YouTube)
In public places such as bird and flower markets, hotels, shopping malls, and corporate facades, this fish has a high appearance rate. The fish boss will tell you that it is called "Blood Parrot", or "Fortune Fish", "Santa Claus Fish", it is beautiful and very easy to keep. However, the fish boss will not tell you that the "blood parrot" is not only not a natural species, but also a fish that has suffered from fish.
Today we will learn about the story of this little fish who brought great wealth and at the same time was very tragic.
If you search for "blood parrot" or its common name "blood parrot" on FishBase, the world's largest online fish database, managed by nine research institutions including the Chinese Academy of Fishery Sciences, you will find nothing.
(Image source: fishbase.se)
What's going on here?
The answer is simple, because the World Fish Database only includes natural fish species, and the blood parrot does not exist in nature. It is a purely artificial fish, but also a hybrid fish, similar to a mule, which cannot produce offspring.
However, this "miscellaneous fish" is not "miscellaneous fish", and the National Taiwan University calls it the "light of Taiwan" and says that it is the most important export ornamental fish in Taiwan Province.
This "fish" out of nothing starts with an engineering man.
Cai Jianfa studied electrical engineering in high school and later worked for an audio company, but his favorite is fish. As an aquatic enthusiast, he opened his own ornamental fish farm after leaving the audio company and became a fish owner.
In 2009, the father of the blood parrot, Cai Jianfa (1st from right) and Chen Jianzhi (1st from left), participated in an ornamental fish expo (Photo: Newtalk News)
Aquaculture also requires constant innovation in order to progress. In addition to taking care of the "water army" in the pool, the daily business of the fish boss is also to hybridize the "elf baby".
In 1988, he and his old friend Chen Yanqing and Chen Jianzhi, a researcher in the Department of Animal Science at National Taiwan University, discovered blood parrots in a bunch of hybrid skewers between female Cichlasoma synspilum and male red devil fish (Cichlasoma citrinellum).
The original blood parrot was a hybrid of the purple-red turkey (Cichlasoma synspilum, top) and the red devil fish (Cichlasoma citrinellum, bottom) (Credit: wikimedia)
The blood parrot exploded as soon as it debuted, and once sold a pair of NT$50,000 (about 10,000 yuan). Tsai Jianfa, Chen Jianzhi and Chen Yanqing said Taiwan's blood parrots have been exported since 1989.
As I said earlier, male and female blood parrots can have feelings, but they cannot have results. This is a bug for buyers, but a wealth password for sellers.
Blood parrots love to play (Image source: watermark)
At that time, the rest of the world did not know who and whose cross-species love crystallization the blood parrot was, and could not breed the blood parrot on its own anyway, so Taiwan Province completely monopolized the blood parrot market. Wang Guozhong, chairman of the Pingtung County Ornamental Aquarium Production Association, said that at its peak, blood parrots can export 80,000 a month.
In the next 20 years, the blood parrot recorded 300 million tails of foreign trade, bringing tens of billions of New Taiwan dollars (about 2 billion yuan) of foreign exchange to Taiwan Province. The blood parrot is super capable of fighting and has become a world-class fish species. Chen Jianzhi introduced that blood parrots now compete at all international ornamental fish exhibitions in Southeast Asia.
Chen Jianzhi also recalled that because of the popularity of the blood parrot, there was also a battle for the name of the father of the blood parrot, and in the end, he and Cai Jianfa and Chen Yanqing unlocked the achievement of the "father of the blood parrot".
Blood parrots love to play (Image source: Internet)
However, National Taiwan University pointed out that the more beautiful the appearance of hybrid fish, the more deformed and shorter the lifespan, and the blood parrot is no exception.
Chen Jianzhi, one of the three "fathers" of blood parrots, admits that blood parrots are inherently flawed, and the biggest flaw is that their mouths do not close.
The mouth of a blood parrot (Credit: The Aquatic Coder/YouTube)
For humans, this makes the blood parrot always look smiling and brings endless emotional value. But for blood parrots, the inability to close their mouths can make it difficult to eat, and they can only struggle to eat by the movement of the muscles of the throat. In short, other fish eat by oh oh, and blood parrots eat by oh oh oh.
Koi rice (Image source: Internet)
In addition to this fetal disease, the blood parrot has also undergone various acquired "magic changes".
Blood parrots have a limited natural color, only red, yellow, and gray, and the other colors you see are artificially dyed.
Colourful blood parrot (Image: TXetc/youtube)
Chen Jianzhi introduced that the dyeing technology of blood parrots mainly relies on injections, and it has been given since childhood.
It turned out that the blood parrot was not red since childhood, and it was gray-white at first. Generally, they do not turn red until they grow up to 7 cm long. In order to stain them, it is done before they turn red.
Blood parrot dyed green (Credit: The Aquatic Coder/YouTube)
Since the red and orange colors of blood parrots come from astaxanthin, farmers cut off astaxanthin during their growth period and then inject pigment injections on the back of blood parrots, so that blood parrots change color. Hit blue and become a blue parrot, hit pink and become a pink parrot.
However, this dyed fish can only be kept for a period of time, and after the pigment injection, it will generally fade after 3 weeks to 5 months. In order to keep colorful parrots in the fish tank, players can only keep punching coins.
The worst thing is probably not the dyed blood parrot, but the blood parrot called "One Heart".
This blood parrot looks very cute because it looks like a loving heart -
"One Heart" (Image source: shayaochi.pixnet.net)
I wonder if you see anything wrong? How can there be a small "tweet" on the ass of "a heart"?
It turns out that "One Heart" is an artificial disabled fish. At 2-3 cm long, the tails of small fish are cut off so that they grow up to become "a heart". Chen Jianzhi introduced that one in ten small fish that have undergone surgery will die.
"One Heart" (Image source: shayaochi.pixnet.net)
Similarly, there is a blood parrot called the "pentagonal parrot" that has a passive knife on its back. According to him, this type of "surgery" was popular in 2015-2016. With the gradual spread of the truth of "magic reform", many aquarium enthusiasts abroad have begun to boycott such deformed fish.
Of course, blood parrots can be demonized because they are indeed "resistant". Blood parrots do not have high water quality requirements and are not very susceptible to illness.
All in all, only very strong fish can bring a steady stream of wealth to mankind after suffering from injections, disabilities, and inability to eat well.
If you are lucky enough to adopt this fish strong, be sure to treat it well.
Because of health, miserable practice, and finally realized.
Cover credit: Wikimedia Reference: https://docs.qq.com/doc/DVEJkS3FydVViZExi
This article is reprinted with permission from the WeChat public account: Bring Science Home (ID: steamforkids), author Everything