Goldfish

The goldfish is a small, shiny freshwater fish and one of the most popular pets in the whole world. Many goldfish are a bright orange-gold, but they can also be red, white, black, or a mix of colours. In a pond a goldfish can grow much bigger than the little ones we see in bowls, sometimes as long as a grown-up’s forearm.

Goldfish have a surprising story. Long ago in East Asia, people kept a plain, grey-green wild fish called a carp. Every so often a fish would be born with a patch of gold, and people liked it so much that they kept and bred the prettiest ones. Over hundreds of years this careful choosing turned the dull carp into the gleaming goldfish, and today there are around three hundred different kinds.

In the wild, goldfish live in calm, slow water like ponds, lakes, and marshes. They are omnivores, which means they eat both little animals and plants. They nibble water plants and hunt for tiny creatures such as small crustaceans and insects, hoovering along the bottom with their mouths to see what they can find.

Goldfish are cleverer than many people think. They can tell shapes, colours, and sounds apart, and they can remember things for at least three months. A pet goldfish often learns to recognise the person who feeds it and will swim eagerly to the front of the tank at feeding time, which is a bit like saying hello.

Because goldfish are kept and bred by people all over the world, they are not a species in danger, and the IUCN lists them as Least Concern. One thing we should never do is set a pet goldfish free in a local pond or river. Away from home they can grow large and crowd out wild animals, so the kindest choice is to keep our goldfish happy and safe in their own watery home.