The general morphological characteristics of scales on the body surface in Cyprininae fishes can be summarized as follows: 1) The lentic and lotic habitats have no relation to the phase of scales. 2) The scales in the anterior body parts have transverse diameters longer than their longi-tudinal diameters: in the posterior body parts, the opposite holds true. 3) The scales having the largest diameters, both longitudinal and transverse, are the lateral line scales. 4) The position of the focus on each scale move posteriorly as the scale grows. In other words, the forward growth of the scales exceeds the backward. 5) The number of ridges in each scale is in proportion to longitudinal diameter. 6) In Cyprinus, the scales on the middle part of the body surface have more grooves than those on the other parts. All scales on this species commonly show incompleted grooves on the anterior and posterior areas, but the lateral area lacks grooves entirely. 7) In Carassius, there are more completed grooves than incompleted grooves. All grooves are arranged in radial patterns on the scales.