Article · Wikipedia archive · Last revised Jun 3, 2026

Nothobranchius furzeri

Nothobranchius furzeri, the turquoise killifish, is a species of killifish from the family Nothobranchiidae native to Africa where it is only known from Zimbabwe and Mozambique. This annual killifish inhabits ephemeral pools in semi-arid areas with scarce and erratic precipitations and have adapted to the routine drying of their environment by evolving desiccation-resistant eggs that can remain dormant in the dry mud for one and maybe more years by entering into diapause.

Last revised
Jun 3, 2026
Read time
≈ 4 min
Length
897 w
Citations
19
Source
Wikipedia ↗
Turquoise killifish
Male Nothobranchius furzeri GRZ
(from Gonarezhou National Park)
Scientific classification Edit this classification
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Actinopterygii
Order: Cyprinodontiformes
Family: Nothobranchiidae
Genus: Nothobranchius
Species:
N. furzeri
Binomial name
Nothobranchius furzeri
R. A. Jubb, 1971

Nothobranchius furzeri, the turquoise killifish, is a species of killifish from the family Nothobranchiidae native to Africa where it is only known from Zimbabwe and Mozambique.2 This annual killifish inhabits ephemeral pools in semi-arid areas with scarce and erratic precipitations and have adapted to the routine drying of their environment by evolving desiccation-resistant eggs that can remain dormant in the dry mud for one and maybe more years by entering into diapause.3

Among vertebrates, the species has the fastest known sexual maturity – only 14 days after hatching.45 Due to very short duration of the rain season, the natural lifespan of these animals is limited to a few months67 and their captive lifespan is likewise short. More specifically, they are able to live 1–5 months in the wild (with most only living up to 2 months7) and 38 to 169 months in captivity depending on the strain and environment. Turquoise killifish are the shortest-lived vertebrate kept in captivity10 making them an attractive model system for ageing and disease research.11 Tandem repeats comprise 21% of the species' genome, an abnormally high proportion, which has been suggested as a factor in its fast ageing.1213 Their captive diet consists mostly of bloodworms and there are ongoing efforts to replace bloodworms by pelleted diets.14 Recent advancements in captive nutrition led to the development of a synthetic diet, enabling researchers to assess the importance of caloric and protein restriction on the organism's actuarial ageing.15

This species can reach a total length of 6.5 cm (2.6 in).2

The species name is derived from that of the discoverer Richard E. Furzer of Rhodesia.16

N. fuzeri is a common model organism used to study aging.17

References

References

  1. Nagy, B.; Watters, B. (2019). "Nothobranchius furzeri". IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. 2019 e.T63305A99447871. doi:10.2305/IUCN.UK.2019-3.RLTS.T63305A99447871.en. Retrieved 20 November 2021.
  2. Froese, Rainer; Pauly, Daniel (eds.). "Nothobranchius furzeri". FishBase. February 2014 version.
  3. Reichard, Martin; Polačik, Matej (2019-01-08). "Nothobranchius furzeri, an 'instant' fish from an ephemeral habitat". eLife. 8 e41548. doi:10.7554/eLife.41548. ISSN 2050-084X. PMC 6324871. PMID 30616713.
  4. Milius, Susan (2018-08-06). "This killifish can go from egg to sex in two weeks". Science News. Retrieved 2018-08-08.
  5. Vrtílek, Milan; Žák, Jakub; Pšenička, Martin; Reichard, Martin (August 2018). "Extremely rapid maturation of a wild African annual fish". Current Biology. 28 (15): R822–R824. doi:10.1016/j.cub.2018.06.031. ISSN 0960-9822. PMID 30086311.
  6. Vrtílek, Milan; Žák, Jakub; Polačik, Matej; Blažek, Radim; Reichard, Martin (2018-03-19). "Longitudinal demographic study of wild populations of African annual killifish". Scientific Reports. 8 (1): 4774. doi:10.1038/s41598-018-22878-6. ISSN 2045-2322. PMC 5859278. PMID 29555942.
  7. Žák, Jakub; Vrtílek, Milan; Polačik, Matej; Blažek, Radim; Reichard, Martin (2021). "Short-lived fishes: Annual and multivoltine strategies". Fish and Fisheries. 22 (3): 546–561. doi:10.1111/faf.12535. ISSN 1467-2979. S2CID 234048965.
  8. Valdesalici, Stefano; Cellerino, Alessandro (2003-11-07). "Extremely short lifespan in the annual fish Nothobranchius furzeri". Proceedings of the Royal Society of London. Series B: Biological Sciences. 270 (suppl_2): S189-91. doi:10.1098/rsbl.2003.0048. ISSN 0962-8452. PMC 1809958. PMID 14667379.
  9. Žák, Jakub; Reichard, Martin (February 2021). Gaillard, Jean‐Michel (ed.). "Reproductive senescence in a short‐lived fish". Journal of Animal Ecology. 90 (2): 492–502. doi:10.1111/1365-2656.13382. ISSN 0021-8790. PMID 33159690. S2CID 226275515.
  10. Cellerino, Alessandro; Valenzano, Dario R.; Reichard, Martin (May 2016). "From the bush to the bench: the annual Nothobranchius fishes as a new model system in biology". Biological Reviews. 91 (2): 511–533. doi:10.1111/brv.12183. hdl:11384/61025. ISSN 1464-7931. PMID 25923786.
  11. Harel, I.; Benayoun, B. R. N. A.; Machado, B.; Singh, P. P.; Hu, C. K.; Pech, M. F.; Valenzano, D. R.; Zhang, E.; Sharp, S. C.; Artandi, S. E.; Brunet, A. (2015). "A Platform for Rapid Exploration of Aging and Diseases in a Naturally Short-Lived Vertebrate". Cell. 160 (5): 1013–26. doi:10.1016/j.cell.2015.01.038. PMC 4344913. PMID 25684364.
  12. Treangen, T. J.; Salzberg, S. L. (2011). "Repetitive DNA and next-generation sequencing: Computational challenges and solutions". Nature Reviews Genetics. 13 (1): 36–46. doi:10.1038/nrg3117. PMC 3324860. PMID 22124482.
  13. Willemsen, David; Cui, Rongfeng; Reichard, Martin; Valenzano, Dario Riccardo (2020-09-01). Kapahi, Pankaj; Tyler, Jessica K; Clark, Nathan (eds.). "Intra-species differences in population size shape life history and genome evolution". eLife. 9 e55794. doi:10.7554/eLife.55794. ISSN 2050-084X. PMC 7462614. PMID 32869739.
  14. Žák, Jakub; Dyková, Iva; Reichard, Martin (December 2020). "Good performance of turquoise killifish (Nothobranchius furzeri) on pelleted diet as a step towards husbandry standardization". Scientific Reports. 10 (1): 8986. doi:10.1038/s41598-020-65930-0. ISSN 2045-2322. PMC 7265286. PMID 32488062.
  15. Žák, Jakub; Reichard, Martin (2026-01-12). Duque, Gustavo (ed.). "Neither caloric nor protein restriction increases the male lifespan of outbred short-lived fish". The Journals of Gerontology, Series A: Biological Sciences and Medical Sciences. 81 (2). doi:10.1093/gerona/glaf278. ISSN 1079-5006. PMC 12832942. PMID 41389216.
  16. Christopher Scharpf; Kenneth J. Lazara (31 May 2019). "Order CYPRINODONTIFORMES: Families APLOCHEILIDAE and NOTHOBRANCHIIDAE". The ETYFish Project Fish Name Etymology Database. Christopher Scharpf and Kenneth J. Lazara. Retrieved 4 September 2019.
  17. Kim, Yumi; Nam, Hong Gil; Valenzano, Dario Riccardo (2016). "The short-lived African turquoise killifish: an emerging experimental model for ageing". Disease Models & Mechanisms. 9 (2): 115–129. doi:10.1242/dmm.023226. ISSN 1754-8411. PMC 4770150. PMID 26839399.
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