"Bigheaded carp" is used for the genus

Genus

In biology, a genus is a low-level taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of living and fossil organisms, which is an example of definition by genus and differentia...

 Hypophthalmichthys

Hypophthalmichthys

Hypophthalmichthys is a genus of cyprinid fish consisting of three species. The name comes from Greek , "below"; , "eye"; , "fish", thus "fish with eyes below", referring to the fact that the fish has its eyes below the mouth line.They are also known as bighead carp, though that term is also...

as a whole.

The bighead carp is a freshwater

Freshwater

Fresh water is naturally occurring water on the Earth's surface in ice sheets, ice caps, glaciers, bogs, ponds, lakes, rivers and streams, and underground as groundwater in aquifers and underground streams. Fresh water is generally characterized by having low concentrations of dissolved salts and...

 fish

Fish

Fish are a paraphyletic group of organisms that consist of all gill-bearing aquatic vertebrate animals that lack limbs with digits. Included in this definition are the living hagfish, lampreys, and cartilaginous and bony fish, as well as various extinct related groups...

, one of several Asian carp

Asian carp

Many species of heavy-bodied cyprinid fish are collectively known in the United States as Asian carp. Cyprinids from the subcontinent [for example, catla and mrigal ] are not included in this classification, and are known collectively as "Indian carp".Eight Asian carp have been substantially...

s. It has a large, scaleless head, a large mouth, and eyes located very low on the head. Adults usually have a mottled silver-gray coloration. Adults can be quite large. Record sizes occasionally approach 143 lb (65 kg) and a total length of 145 cm; one this size was collected in Furnas Reservoir, Minas Gerais State, Brazil, in 2006, but most places in the Mississippi River basin, a fish over 40 lb (18 kg) is considered very large.