In Qinghai Lake, scaleless carp is a special product. It is a naked carp living in cold water, with few scales. It has strong adaptation to environment, including salt water, rock crack, small pool and etc.

It has a body shaped like a spindle, a blunt but round head, a protruding mouth, no beard, a grayish or yellowish brown back, a grayish or yellowish belly, some irregular brown spots on its sides, grayish or reddish fins, some of them having a yellowish or dark green body. The baby fishes live in group in estuary of river. They live on aquatic insects and alga.

The elevation of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, and also the emergence of glaciers during Quaternary period (about 1,000,000 years ago) forced the scaled carp ancestors living in these waters to make gradual adaptations to the new environment. The longtime influence of high altitudes, strong radiation, low water temperature and other adverse circumstances led to the thickening of the subcutaneous fat, which strengthened its resistance to cold, and the increase of secretion from its surface mucus glands. It grows very slowly, about 3-5cm in the first year and finally its length is 50-60cm. its weight is 250g in the eight year and 5km in the 25th year. The largest one is 6.5kg and 95cm long.

The number of male fish is larger than the female. The average egg amount of female fish is 16242. Every late March, when the ice covering of Qinghai Lake begins to melt and the temperature rises to 5-6 , shoals of scaleless carp move upstream to the rivers that empty into the lake, struggling against the current, they run after each other to reproduce by ovulation and insemination. 

Such activities reach their climax in May and June. Near the mouth of the Buha River, sometimes thousands of carps can be seen striving upstream toward the river, churn the water turbulently ,each one fearing to lag behind, while crossing the shallows, the dorsal and caudal fins of many of them protrude above the surface, as if a thousand sailboats are vying in a race.