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The following photograph-rich article is about the Dragon Gate Carp of the Dragon Gate waterfall in China. This article also features unique traditional popular culture associated with the Dragon Gate Carp in China and Japan. In addition, varieties of dragon fish and horned fish around the world are featured here. Some of such freaks of nature and/or gaffs (rogue taxidermy artworks) have been featured at sideshows here in America for over a century. This manuscript was produced by Dr. Eriko N. Bond, noted art critic and book author in New York City, as told by Takeshi Yamada. Yamada is one of the most active artists in New York City and has had over 400 fine art exhibitions internationally.

TAKESHI YAMADA

DRAGON FISH & HORNED FISH

Part 5

Bronze stature of the traditional Chinese Dragon.

Dragon Gate Carp Taxidermy

The Museum of World Wonders in Coney Island area of Brooklyn, New York has been displaying numerous curiosity specimens, rogue taxidermy artworks, gaffs and specimen models for decades. For the part of the community outreach educational/cultural programs of the museum, Takeshi Yamada (President of MOWW) also has been producing exhibitions of selected items of curiosities at major institutions in New York City and other states around the nation. The list of such institutions exhibited rogue taxidermy (creative taxidermy, freak taxidermy, gaffs) and specimens of Takeshi Yamada are American Museum of Natural History, Long Island University, St. Joseph’s Collage, Arsenal Gallery (NY Park & Recreation Department), Maryland Institute College of Art, Salt Marsh Nature Center, Orchard Beach Nature Center, Astroland Amusement Park, Museum of World Oddities, Keyspan Park (baseball stadium of Brooklyn minor league Cyclone), local non profit art organizations and fine art galleries, etc.

Museum of World Wonders displays especially large number of unusual, odd, rare and extinct marine organisms due to its current location by the Coney Island Beach and New York Aquarium in Coney Island. Examples of such curiosities are two-headed fish, human-faced fish, fish with arms, fish with legs, mummified mermaids (one of them is 6-feet long), horned fish, 4-foot dragon fish, 32-foot giant sea serpent, giant 3-foot prehistoric horseshoe crabs, sea elephants, 3-foot marsh dragons, etc.

Shown below are selected specimens, artifacts and artworks from the “Dragon Gate Fish” on display at Museum of World Wonders.

DRAGON GATE CARP

Common name: Dragon Carp, Dragon Gate Carp, Chinese Dragon Fish, Dragon-head Carp

(Common name in America: Fishalope, Chinese Fishalope, Horny Fish, Horned Fish)

Latin name: (Varassius aurapekinentus)

Location: Dragon Gate waterfall at the Yellow River in Hunan, China

Original Collection: Peking Museum of Natural History

Original Date of Collection: 1785

Description: This remarkable species of dragon fish is indigenous to the waterfall called Dragon Gate (Longmen) at the Yellow River in Hunan, China. Dragon Gate Carp are reported to grow to over one meter in length, and 60 kg in weight but 4 - 6 kg is more usual. They are omnivorous, sucking and straining mud from the bottom and sucking insects and plants from the surface. Juvenile Dragon Gate Carp feed mainly on microscopic algae, rotifers and crustaceans (crabs and shrimps). The naming of this species of fish comes from the resemblance of its head to that of the Chinese dragon.

Locals consider these to be the divine fish, and the Buddhist temples and Taoist temples collect their remains as the Dragon’s babies. In addition, some of the local pharmacies who handle traditional herbal medicines grind down this (dried) fish (just like how they treat the “Dragon Bone”, which is often a fossilized dinosaur’s bone) and use them for their treatment of spirit disorders: The Dragon Carp is sweet and balanced. It mainly treats heart and abdominal demonic influx, spiritual miasma, and old ghosts; it also treats cough and counter flow of qi, diarrhea and dysentery with pus and blood, vaginal discharge, hardness and binding in the abdomen, and fright epilepsy in children.

Note 1: According to the Chinese mythology, on the Yellow River at Hunan is a waterfall called the Dragon Gate. It is said that if carp successfully climb the cataract, they will transform into dragons. Today, many other waterfalls in China also have the name Dragon Gate with almost identical local regions. Other famous Dragon Gates are on the Wei River where it passes through the Lung Sheu Mountains and at Tsin in Shanxi Province. Many waterfalls near Buddhism Temples in Japan are also named Dragon Gate.

Note 2: The Chinese dragon (龍) is a Chinese mythical creature, depicted as a long, scaled, snake-like creature with four claws. Unlike the Western evil counterpart, Chinese dragon has long been a potent symbol of vitality, power, wisdom, and goodness in Chinese mythology.

Dragon Gate Carp (Drawing)

Following Victorian style zoological drawings features a number of species (some of them are extinct) of Dragon Gate Carps.