Not all Grass Carp hit the news

[MuskieBait]

Since you seemed to know some genetics...so here goes...

The following study supports that Goldfish is a monophyletic lineage that is not nested within Prussian Carp. Rather, Goldfish and Prussian Carp are sister lineages, suggested that the two species have diverged from each other through domestication. The difference between Goldfish and Prussian Carp is not merely limited to recessive mutations.

https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Luk...000000.pdf

And this next study of Prussian Carp genetic diversity suggests that although Prussian Carp from western Mongolia belongs in the same clade as the Goldfish, Prussian Carp from Europe, Russia, Eastern Mongolia and China do not cluster in the same clade. It is hypothesized that there may be two species within the C. gibelio designation, or that one population have given rise to the Goldfish while the other populations continued to diverge.

http://www.pfeil-verlag.de/04biol/pdf/ief23_1_03.pdf

This study generated an experimental hybrid Goldfish by crossing C. auratus with Common Carp. The resulting hybrid shares many morphological and genetic similarities with the Common Goldfish. It is one argument that the Goldfish as we know it is not merely a selectively breed Prussian Carp that easily reverts back to C. gibelio.

http://bmcgenet.biomedcentral.com/articl...2156-15-33

Taken together, these studies suggest that through breeding and crossing in the past, a genetically stable and distinct lineage was generated that is deserving of a full species status for the Goldfish as we know it.