Does the length of fish barbells help determine age? Just curious
Bonnie D.
Length of barbells
Bonnie
I doubt it. I know my butterfly koi have longer barbels than my non butterfly koi.
Bet you are thinking of pictures of the guy with the Fu Man Chu and as he got older his Fu Man Chu got longer. ^_^
I was just noticing some have much longer ones than others. I'll pay attention to the straight sided koi and see the difference between them and the butterflies.
Can't say I remember a guy with a Fu Man Chu. Must have been before my time. LOL
You make me laugh Bonnie!
Nope....'fraid not Bonnie. :) They length does add to their price though! I have some that were born with long dangley ones, and some fish that are years old, and 2 feet long, and only have half inch ones. Just part of their individual DNA.
Being good for a laugh is a good thing.
Heck, no Fu Man Chu's in my bunch.
Thank you both for your enlightening response.
MM
I did not know that the length of the barbels contributed the the value of the fish. Truthfully, I haven't seen any with abnormally long barbels other than some of those fancy Japanese paintings.
I'll try to get a picture of one of mine. I have a butterfly with long fu manchu barbells. He sucks them in when he eats, and spits them back out. Just as an FYI...the "nose sponges" or "nose pads" that are above each nostril, can also add value if they are bigger. Funny thing is, the first time I had a fish develop them, years ago, I thought it had some sort of fungal growth, so I treated it with everything I could think of. It was while I was looking up what to do next that I found out it's part of the fish! :D
MM -
I have some fish with very big nose pads. I too thought it was an abnormality at first and though 'oh no!'. It seem the nose pads are larger on the butterfly koi as well.
Caroly
Yes! I've noticed that too, they do seem to be bigger on the butteflies!