Cardinal tetra
Amazing fact
A cardinal tetra’s glowing stripe changes between green and blue as the angle of light changes.
University of Michigan Animal Diversity Web
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An illustration based on the real animal.
A little discovery to share.
A cardinal tetra’s glowing stripe changes between green and blue as the angle of light changes.
THE REAL WORLD
The real Cardinal tetra
- Scientific name
- Paracheirodon axelrodi
- Japanese name
- カーディナルテトラ
- Group
- Freshwater animals
- Order
- Characiformes
- Family
- Characidae
- Genus
- Paracheirodon
It belongs to the characins, a group with very many kinds, and lives in the Rio Negro.
How the Cardinal tetra lives
It is active by day and lives in large schools in the wild. It eats tiny crustaceans, eggs, algae, and other foods. It spends time in the middle layers of slow-moving water. At night, without light on its stripe, its body becomes transparent and brownish.
University of Michigan Animal Diversity WebBasic data
- Range
- Negro River
Where the Cardinal tetra 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
- カーディナルテトラ
- 简体中文
- 阿氏霓虹脂鲤
- 繁體中文
- 阿氏霓虹脂鯉
- Español
- Tetra cardenal
- Français
- Neon
- Deutsch
- Roter Neon
- Português (Brasil)
- Tetra-cardeal
- Italiano
- Neon cardinale
- العربية
- تترا كردينالية
- Bahasa Indonesia
- Tetra beram
- Русский
- Красный неон
- Türkçe
- Kardinal Tetra
- ไทย
- ปลาคาร์ดินัล
- বাংলা
- কার্ডিনাল টেট্রা
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 — カーディナルテトラChecked: 2026-11-04
- University of Michigan Animal Diversity Web — Paracheirodon axelrodiChecked: 2026-11-06
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.
This page was translated from the original Japanese with the help of AI.
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