Celestial Eye

The Celestial Eye goldfish or Choutengan is a double-tailed breed of fancy goldfish that possesses a distinctive pair of telescope eyes, in which the eyeballs are turned vertically and the pupils appear to be gazing skyward.

Upon hatching of celestial fry, the young fishes' eyes are positioned normally but gradually enlarge, such as with the telescope eye goldfish. However, the telescope-eye still gazes laterally; the celestial goldfish's pupils will shift to a near-vertical (at times, "cross-eyed") gaze within a six-month period after hatching, as the eyeballs are repositioned and the pupils are centered on the top of the head.

This process is entirely governed by genetics; early sources perpetuated the myth that the fish were bred in and contained within narrow-necked clay jars, with the eyes mutating upwards in search of what limited light they could receive.

Origins

Celestials first appeared as a direct mutation of the telescope goldfish in the 18th century. It is still unclear as to where, exactly, this occurred first—in Korea or China. The earliest known documentation of a celestial existing appears on a Chinese scroll dated to 1772, in which a goldfish lacking a dorsal fin and possessing protuberant, upturned eyes is described.

Celestials did not arrive in Japan until 1903, at which time 30 specimens arrived from China and became the founding stock for Japanese breeders. Japan quickly became the leading producer of celestials for export, and remained so until the outbreak of WWII. The breed first arrived in the United States from Japan in the 1900s and 1910s, and were included in the first edition of Goldfish Varieties and Tropical Aquarium Fishes (1917) by William T. Innes. American fanciers successfully bred the fish and, in turn, exported foundational stock to Great Britain.