Northern Medaka
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An illustration based on the real animal.
A little discovery to share.
The northern medaka has a small, upward-facing mouth.
THE REAL WORLD
The real Northern Medaka
- Scientific name
- Oryzias sakaizumii
- Japanese name
- キタノメダカ
- Group
- Freshwater animals
- Order
- Beloniformes
- Family
- Adrianichthyidae
- Genus
- Oryzias
It was described as a new species when the classification of the medaka was revised and divided.
A medaka whose natural home is the Sea of Japan side of Japan, from Aomori Prefecture to the Tango Peninsula in Kyoto Prefecture.
A small, blackish-brown fish. Compared with the southern medaka, its sides are more darkly marked and the notch in its dorsal fin is shallower.
An omnivorous fish that is common in slow-flowing pools along rivers, ponds, rice paddies, and irrigation channels.
How the Northern Medaka lives
It eats aquatic insects and insects that fall into the water. It swims in groups at the water surface.
新潟市 潟のデジタル博物館Basic data
- Size
- Body length: about 3 cm
- Range
- Sea of Japan side from Aomori to the eastern Tango Peninsula in Kyoto
- Conservation status in Japan
- Vulnerable (VU)Ministry of the Environment of Japan, Red List 2020
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
- 京都府 — 京都府レッドデータブック2015 キタノメダカChecked: 2026-11-03
- 新潟市 潟のデジタル博物館 — 魚類 — キタノメダカ（メダカ科）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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