Freshwater sleeper

Freshwater sleepers are a small family, the Odontobutidae, of gobiiform ray-finned fishes native to freshwater rivers flowing into the South China Sea and the northwestern Pacific Ocean. The family consists of about 22 species in six genera.

Freshwater sleeper Temporal range: Late Eocene to present PreꞒ Ꞓ O S D C P T J K Pg N
Odontobutis obscura
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Class:	Actinopterygii
Order:	Gobiiformes
Suborder:	Gobioidei
Family:	Odontobutidae Hoese & A. C. Gill, 1993
Genera[1]
See text

Genera

The following genera are currently recognised as being within the family Odontobutidae:^[2]

• Micropercops Fowler & Bean, 1920
• Neodontobutis I. S. Chen, Kottelat & H. L. Wu, 2002
• Odontobutis Bleeker, 1874
• Perccottus Dybowski, 1877
• Sineleotris Herre, 1940
• Terateleotris Shibukawa, Iwata & Viravong, 2001

A single fossil genus is known, †Paralates Sauvage, 1883, from the Late Eocene of England and Early Oligocene of France. This genus was long considered an early gobioid of uncertain affinities, but a 2025 study, which also analyzed its otolith morphology, found it to be a stem-member of the Odontobutidae.^[3]