Oily bitterling
Amazing fact
The oily bitterling lays its eggs inside the gills of living freshwater shellfish.
国土交通省 中国地方整備局 太田川河川事務所
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An illustration based on the real animal.
A little discovery to share.
The oily bitterling lays its eggs inside the gills of living freshwater shellfish.
THE REAL WORLD
The real Oily bitterling
- Scientific name
- Tanakia limbata
- Japanese name
- アブラボテ
- Group
- Freshwater animals
- Order
- Cypriniformes
- Family
- Cyprinidae
- Genus
- Tanakia
A bitterling that lives in Honshu west of the Nobi Plain and in northern Shikoku and Kyushu.
How the Oily bitterling lives
It mainly eats small bottom-dwelling animals, such as midge larvae. Its spawning season runs from spring into summer. The male leads the female to a shellfish and releases sperm after she lays her eggs. The male guards the shellfish containing the eggs.
国土交通省 中国地方整備局 太田川河川事務所三重県 水産研究所Basic data
- Range
- Honshu west of the Nobi Plain, northern Shikoku, northern Kyushu, and Awaji Island
- Conservation status in Japan
- Near Threatened (NT)Ministry of the Environment of Japan, Red List 2020
Where the Oily bitterling has been recorded
Records: GBIF.org (CC0 and CC BY 4.0 records, retrieved 2026-11-07). Map: Natural EarthSee the records on GBIF
Watch wild animals from a distance. Do not touch or feed them, and take care of the places where they live.
Names around the world
Names come from Wikidata and iNaturalist records. Where a language has no recorded name, we use the scientific name.
Sources and how we check
- 鳥羽水族館 — アブラボテChecked: 2026-11-04
- 国土交通省 中国地方整備局 太田川河川事務所 — アブラボテChecked: 2026-11-07
- 三重県 水産研究所 — アブラボテChecked: 2026-11-07
- Ministry of the Environment of Japan, Red List 2020Checked: 2026-11-07
We check each fact against its source. The illustrations simplify how the real animal looks.
The classification (class, order, family, genus) follows Wikidata records, checked against GBIF. Classifications can change as research goes on.
The basic data are the values given in each source. They vary with how the animal is measured, whether it is male or female, and whether it lives in the wild or in captivity.
The conservation status in Japan is the category in the Red Lists of the Ministry of the Environment of Japan, which assess the risk of extinction for wild animals in Japan.
This page was translated from the original Japanese with the help of AI.
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