#2085 · 🐟 fish
Tench
🇳🇱 Zeelt ·Tinca tinca
9 photos from iNaturalist (Creative Commons) · credits & licences
what is it?
The tench or doctor fish ( Tinca tinca ) is a fresh- and brackish-water fish of the cyprinid family found throughout Eurasia from Western Europe including the British Isles east into Asia as far as the Ob and Yenisei Rivers. It is also found in Lake Baikal. It normally inhabits slow-moving freshwater habitats, particularly lakes and lowland rivers. In Germany, the tench is called Schlei .
base stats
Bars compare against all animals on log scales: up to 300,000 Dutch and 600,000 worldwide sightings (the most-seen species), 150 t (blue whale), 30 m and 400 years (Greenland shark).
fun facts
- Spotted 100 times in the Netherlands on iNaturalist: the #14 most seen of the fish in NL.
- 2,343 observations worldwide on iNaturalist.
- Scientifically named in 1758 (268 years ago).
fact sheet
- English
- Tench
- Nederlands
- Zeelt
- scientific name
- Tinca tinca
- class
- Actinopterygii
- order
- Cypriniformes
- family
- Tincidae
- IUCN Red List
- LC · least concern
- sightings in NL
- 100
- sightings in Europe
- 1,863
- sightings worldwide
- 2,343
- GBIF records in NL
- 54,304
- weight
- —
- length
- —
- lifespan
- —
- named
- 1758
IUCN in Dutch: niet bedreigd. Blank means the sources don't say.
Sources: iNaturalist taxon 114177, Wikidata Q76280, GBIF 2362524, Wikipedia (EN), Wikipedia (NL). Intro text from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0).Updated 2026-10-24.