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Gold barb

species of fish

Specimen drawers, botanical folios and brass scientific instruments under study light
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Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionJan 6, 2026
Entity authorityQ771706 ↗
Source-derived summary

This species may be confused with: golden barb (P. gelius).

Barbodes semifasciolatus, the Chinese barb, is a species of cyprinid fish native to the Red River basin in southeast Asia where they occur in fresh waters at depths of 5 metres (16 ft) or less. The captive variant popularly known as the gold barb or Goldfinned barb or Schuberti barb is an extremely popular aquarium fish.

Description

Adults of this species have highly arched backs and a short pair of barbels on the upper jaw at the corners of the mouth. The back is light to reddish brown, the sides are metallic green or yellow-green, with a brassy or golden sheen below. The belly is whitish, and yellow-green in males at mating time. Females can be distinguished by their dull colors and their overall bulk.

This species can reach a length of 7 centimetres (2.8 in) TL though most do not exceed 3.5 centimetres (1.4 in) SL.

Diet

Their diet consists of invertebrates (such as insects, crustaceans and worms) and plant matter.

Breeding

An egg-scatter, adult barbs will usually spawn around a hundred eggs, although up to 400 eggs have been observed from an exceptional female. This breeding occurs at the first light in the early morning.

Editorial summary

The public source identifies “Gold barb” as species of fish. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Gold, barb and species.

Editorial reviewA practical orientation to terminology and classification, particularly when read beside dated observations, specimens or technical literature. The current 207-word lead offers orientation but no explicit four-digit date, so chronology should not be assumed. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. Its value is orientation rather than verdict, with Gold, barb and species providing the first useful test.
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Evidence profile

Stable identifiers, scientific names and standards terminology offer the best bridge between this overview and specialist evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jan 6, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q771706. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference.

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Gold barb” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.