Pond loach
No sign-up needed. You can save notes on this device.
An illustration based on the real animal.
A little discovery to share.
When dojo loaches spawn, the male wraps around the female’s belly.
THE REAL WORLD
The real Pond loach
- Scientific name
- Misgurnus anguillicaudatus
- Japanese name
- ドジョウ
- Group
- Freshwater animals
- Order
- Cypriniformes
- Family
- Cobitidae
- Genus
- Misgurnus
A fish that lives mainly in lowland rice paddies, wetlands and the small streams around them.
Besides breathing with its gills, it is said to also breathe air using its intestine.
When water is let into the rice paddies and the soil is churned up, it moves from the channels into the paddies and lays its eggs at night.
How the Pond loach lives
They eat animals such as midge larvae. The eggs are scattered over the mud. After spawning, adults and newly hatched young live in the rice paddy.
農林水産省 東海農政局国立環境研究所 侵入生物データベースBasic data
- Size
- Total length: males 11 cm, females 12 cm国立環境研究所 侵入生物データベース
- Diet
- Midge larvae and others農林水産省 東海農政局
- Range
- South of the Amur to mainland China, Korean Peninsula, Taiwan, Hainan, northern Vietnam and Myanmar国立環境研究所 侵入生物データベース
- Conservation status in Japan
- Near Threatened (NT)Ministry of the Environment of Japan, Red List 2020
Where the Pond loach 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
- 日本語
- ドジョウ
- 简体中文
- 泥鳅
- 繁體中文
- 泥鰍
- 한국어
- 미꾸리
- Español
- Dojo
- Français
- Loche baromètre
- Português (Brasil)
- Dojô
- Italiano
- Cobite di stagno orientale
- Русский
- Амурский вьюн
Names come from Wikidata and iNaturalist records. Where a language has no recorded name, we use the scientific name.
Sources and how we check
- 国立環境研究所 侵入生物データベース — ドジョウChecked: 2026-11-03
- 農林水産省 東海農政局 — 田んぼの生き物館Checked: 2026-11-03
- 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.
Report a mistakeRELATIVES
Others in Cypriniformes
MORE TO MEET
