blobfish

Open encyclopedia reference

Psychrolutes marcidus, the smooth-head blobfish, or simply the blobfish, is a deep-sea fish of the family Psychrolutidae. It inhabits the deep waters off the coasts of mainland Australia and Tasmania, as well as the waters of New Zealand.

Blobfish are typically shorter than 30 cm (12 in). They live at depths between 600 and 1,200 m (2,000 and 3,900 ft), where the pressure is 60 to 120 times greater than that at sea level, which would likely make gas bladders inefficient for maintaining buoyancy. Instead, the flesh of the blobfish is primarily a gelatinous mass with a density slightly less than that of water; this allows the fish to float above the sea floor without expending energy on swimming. The blobfish has a relative lack of muscle, but this is not a disadvantage, as its main food source is edible matter that floats in front of it, such as deep-ocean crustaceans.

Wikipedia contributors, Psychrolutes marcidus; see linked history · CC BY-SA 4.0 . Plain-text lead excerpt, at most 180 words; no infobox or later sections Retrieved 2026-10-05T02:31:42.014909+00:00. This reference remains separate from the taxonomic record.

Identity & source status

Scientific name

Psychrolutes marcidus (McCulloch, 1926)

Name authority

(McCulloch, 1926)

Common name

blobfish

Rank

species

Accepted status

accepted

Kingdom

Animalia

Phylum

Chordata

Class

Teleostei

Order

Perciformes

Family

Psychrolutidae

Genus

Psychrolutes

Extinction status

Not supplied by this source

Source habitat flags: Marine: yes · Freshwater: no · Terrestrial: no. These do not form a complete habitat description.

Classification family tree

Nested taxonomic groups from the source. This is not a direct-ancestor chain, a dated evolutionary tree or a phylogenetic reconstruction.

1. domainEukaryota (Chatton, 1925) Whittaker & Margulis, 1978
2. kingdomAnimalia
3. phylumChordata
4. subphylumVertebrata
5. infraphylumGnathostomata
6. parvphylumOsteichthyes
7. gigaclassActinopterygii
8. superclassActinopteri
9. classTeleostei
10. orderPerciformes
11. suborderCottoidei
12. familyPsychrolutidae Günther, 1861
13. genusPsychrolutes Günther, 1861
14. speciesPsychrolutes marcidus (McCulloch, 1926)

Close classified relatives

These entries share the source’s genus, Psychrolutes. They are not necessarily the closest relatives established by molecular evidence.

Browse 33 records assigned to Psychrolutidae.

Names & synonyms

Names explicitly linked to this accepted taxon in the source. Synonymy can change with revision.

Source literature & publication evidence

References attached to this source record, including nomenclatural citations where supplied. This is a selected bibliography; abbreviated citations remain in the source’s form.

1. https://www.marinespecies.org/aphia.php?p=taxdetails&id=274674 Source fields: Taxon.tsv dwc:namePublishedIn, Taxon.tsv dcterms:references

Origins, evidence & remaining research

Name authority and publication references document nomenclature where the source supplies it. They do not establish evolutionary origins or the earliest fossil occurrence.

Specimen-level evidence, morphology, ecological research, phylogenetic studies, a comprehensive bibliography and a located literary passage have not yet been compiled for this record.

Dataset citation & attribution

This exact taxon in ChecklistBank · Catalogue of Life 2026-09-11

Catalogue of Life 2026-09-11; dataset 316321; doi:10.48580/dgz5n. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ . Retrieved 5 October 2026.

Stable key: col:4PR5R. Classification follows source parent identifiers. English common names may vary by region.