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The ryukin in some respects is intermediate between the fantail and the veiltail: it has a deep body and usually a medium to fairly long tail, but the tail is held high and its lobes are narrow; the other fins are similar to the fantail's. In two respects it is different from either: the head is pointed and there is an indentation in the anterior dorsal contour where the head joins the rest of the body, giving a dorsal hump. The ryukin was developed in China and imported and further developed in Japan.
There is a long-tailed version of this fish known as fringetail/ribbontail ryukin.
There is as yet no British standard for the ryukin; any viewer knowing of a standard with line drawings is invited to contact the Website Author.
Photographed in Hong Kong, December 2003
Tricolour (red-white-black) ryukin with medium length tail.
Red and red-and-white fish with short tails. In the centre is a black demekin (see below).
Two red-white fish with short tails, amongst various other types.
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Photographed in Hong Kong in December 2000 (top) and at BAS 1999 (bottom); the red-white variegated fish have long tails.
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This red-and-white variegated fish was shown at BAS 2002. Note the long, deeply forked tail, compared with the broader tail of the veiltail in which the fork has largely been bred out.
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This is the globe eye version of the ryukin, called the demekin, which has all the characters of the ryukin with the addition of the globe eye feature; it is quite distinct from the standard globe eye. Photographed in Hong Kong in December 2000.