Slender Bitterling
Amazing fact
Tiny projections on young slender bitterlings seem to stop them from being expelled by the shellfish they live in.
国立環境研究所
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An illustration based on the real animal.
A little discovery to share.
Tiny projections on young slender bitterlings seem to stop them from being expelled by the shellfish they live in.
THE REAL WORLD
The real Slender Bitterling
- Scientific name
- Tanakia lanceolata
- Japanese name
- ヤリタナゴ
- Group
- Freshwater animals
- Order
- Cypriniformes
- Family
- Cyprinidae
- Genus
- Tanakia
Where the name “Slender Bitterling” comes from
The name Yari-tanago refers to its long, slender, spear-like body.
男鹿水族館GAOA fish of the carp family that lives in Honshu, Shikoku and northern Kyushu, and in the western Korean Peninsula.
It lives in slow-flowing rivers, lakes, ponds and irrigation canals with plenty of water plants.
It eats many kinds of food, and in the breeding season it shows beautiful breeding colors.
How the Slender Bitterling lives
It eats algae growing on surfaces and small bottom-dwelling animals. It breeds in spring. The male establishes a territory around a mussel. The female inserts its egg-laying tube into a mussel’s outlet siphon and lays eggs.
国立環境研究所男鹿水族館GAO大阪府立環境農林水産総合研究所Basic data
- Range
- Western Korean Peninsula and Honshu, Shikoku and northern Kyushu in Japan
- Conservation status in Japan
- Near Threatened (NT)Ministry of the Environment of Japan, Red List 2020
Where the Slender 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 — ヤリタナゴChecked: 2026-11-04
- 男鹿水族館GAO — ヤリタナゴChecked: 2026-11-07
- 大阪府立環境農林水産総合研究所 — ヤリタナゴChecked: 2026-11-07
- 国立環境研究所 — ヤリタナゴ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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