Mylopharyngodon piceus
•March 2003 first specimen captured in the wild
•Caught by commercial fisherman
•Horseshoe Lake, Alexander County, Illinois
•Triploid
•Native of eastern Asia
•Molluscivore
•First imported incidentally with grass carp shipments, later as a food fish and biocontrol for a catfish parasite
•Escapes from a Missouri farm in 1994 Missouri but none recaptured
This the black carp.  It was caught in the wild for the first time back in March of this year by commercial fishermen.  Horseshoe Lake is in Illinois adjacent to the Mississippi River.  The good news is that the fish tested out to be a triploid, in other words, sterile. The black carp is a native of eastern Asia. It eats snails and clams and was introduced for that reason – as a biocontrol of a snail that is the intermediate host of a catfish parasite.  In 1994, about 30 of them escaped a fish farm when a dyke was breached by flood waters. None were ever recaptured.