This fish is a cross between celestial goldfish and butterfly (dragon eyes / telescope eyes). There is nothing unusual from the side view of the fish. It resembles the common telescope eyes. But, there is something strange when seen from above.
Beneath the thin tissues covering the eye-tubes, when observed carefully, we will see other eyes glaring upwards! At a first glance, we might miss them. I was not aware of this phenomenon until I send the fish to my friend’s house. He helped me sell the fish. I just realized this uniqueness when I saw my friend’s video of the fish.
So, the fish has four eyes. Two of them protrudes to the side while the other two look upward. The eyes are the combination of telescope eyes and celestial eyes. The celestial eyes of the fish are not so sharp since they are covered by thin tissues.
Actually, I encountered this phenomenon several times before, but none of the upward eyes are so well-developed as in this specimen. While some might think this case unique, some might think it bizarre. I myself do not think I will continue to develop such feature. Nevertheless, this phenomenon makes me marvel at the mutation capacity of goldfish.
Browsing through old books on Goldfish, I saw specimens I cannot find nowadays. In this writing, I want to mention three that capture my attention.
First, a celestial eye with headgrowth. This is rare. I have met two kinds of celestial goldfish: the popular celestial eye without dorsal (usually with slim body and long tail) and the celestial eye with pompoms (usually comes with short tail and thick body). From my experiment, I have created celestial eye with dorsal fin (Nicknamed Celestial Dragon according to Mr Lei in his youtube channel Goldfish Corner).
But there is another type of celestial I have never seen alive nor mentioned by anyone else. I find the fish in my old encyclopedia. In fact, it is the first book I read in my childhood that mentions goldfish.
The Indonesia edition has 1979 copyright. Very old! And it has only 1 page about goldfish, which I observed to my heart lots of time.
Beautiful goldfish for a child like me! I adopted the terms Hanabus, Seibungyo, Chakin, and more without knowing what they meant. At the heart of this picture is a weird kind of celestial:
This celestial has a headgrowth!
Well, nothing else I can say about it. No other information. It remains an out-of-this-world goldfish for me. Yes, there is a temptation to recreate it. But as I think again, I do not know if I want to do that. The fact that this specimen existed once but no more might be a hint that something might be wrong with it. Perhaps there was not enough market. Perhaps the fish lost a certain function which make it unable to survive. I do not know. I think a headgrowth like that (seems to be like a goosehead type) might intervere with the eyes, in terms of both the functionality and the appreciation – a conflict between two features). Yet, it remains a mysterious fish for me.
Second, a rare ranchu color from Joseph Smartt and James H. Bundell’s “Goldfish Breeding and Genetics” (1996):
On top of page 67 I see a beautiful but rare color:
There is no description about the color. I try to observe this picture many times to figure out if this belongs to metallic or transparent scalation category, but I just cannot be sure about it. And I have no idea of how to create such color! It occurs to me if this was a real fish or just a redwhite fish painted with black marker. But knowing the reputation of the author, I believe it was a real fish. This specimen reminds a mystery to me. Do tell me if you can throw some light on how to create this coloration.
Third, a rare oranda color from “Goldfish in Hongkong” by An Urban Council Publication (1993):
On page 43 there are pictures like these:
And this is the description:
Strange color, right?
For sure I have never seen such a color on the internet nowadays. I also do not know how to create such a fish. The description gives a hint that it has something to do with blue fish (blue metallic scale, I think). But how come the blue color only appear in the face of the fish in a uniform way?
Those three specimens are in the top category of the most mysterious goldfish for me. It will be a delight if one day someone will revive them.
hermantogoldfish 