All printables
Four-eyed fish — printable fact sheet
Free to print or save as PDF. Great for classrooms, homeschooling, and young explorers.
Creature Atlas
Animal Fact Sheet
Name: ____________________
Date: ____________________
Four-eyed fish
Anableps anableps
Anableps does not have four eyes. It has two, but each one is horizontally divided by a band of tissue into an upper and a lower half, with two pupils, two corneas and two separate parts of the retina — and it swims at the surface with the waterline running exactly along that di…
Did you know?
- Despite their name, four-eyed fish actually have only two eyes—each is uniquely adapted to see both above and below the water at the same time.
- Anableps must periodically dip its head to wet the exposed upper corneas, which would otherwise dry out — the fish blinks by submerging rather than by closing a lid. The handedness of the mating anatomy is roughly evenly split in the population, which effectively halves each individual's pool of possible mates. They feed on insects and detritus at the surface and often haul out onto mudbanks at low tide. Because they live in shallow tidal water where a predator can come from either medium, the divided eye is not an oddity but a direct answer to the geometry of their habitat.
What I learned
Draw the four-eyed fish
© Creature Atlas · www.creatureatlas.com · Free for classroom & personal use
Want the whole set?
Get printable fact-sheet packs, coloring pages, and classroom worksheet bundles for dozens of animals — ready to download and print.
Browse printable packsGet a free printable each week
Join the newsletter for a new Creature of the Week + printables.