GloFish
brand of genetically modified fluorescent fish
The GloFish is a patented and trademarked brand of fluorescently colored genetically modified aquarium fish. They have been created from several different species of fish: zebrafish were the first GloFish available in pet stores, followed by black tetras, tiger barbs, rainbow sharks, Siamese fighting fish, X-ray tetras, bronze corydoras, and freshwater angelfish. They are sold in many colors, trademarked as "Starfire Red", "Moonrise Pink", "Sunburst Orange", "Electric Green", "Cosmic Blue", and "Galactic Purple", although not all species are available in all colors. Although not originally developed for the ornamental fish trade, it is one of the first genetically modified animals to become publicly available. The rights to GloFish are owned by Spectrum Brands, Inc., which purchased GloFish from Yorktown Technologies, the original developer of GloFish, in May 2017.
History
Early development
The original zebrafish (or zebra danio, Danio rerio) is a native of rivers in India and Bangladesh. It measures three centimeters long and has gold and dark blue stripes. In 1999, Dr. Zhiyuan Gong and his colleagues at the National University of Singapore were working with a gene that encodes the green fluorescent protein (GFP), originally extracted from a jellyfish, that naturally produced bright green fluorescence. They inserted the gene into a zebrafish embryo, allowing it to integrate into the zebrafish's genome, which caused the fish to be brightly fluorescent under both natural white light and ultraviolet light.
“GloFish” enters the record as brand of genetically modified fluorescent fish. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what GloFish, brand and genetically can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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Datasets, specimens, observations and peer-reviewed methods provide the appropriate test for the technical claims summarized here. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 7, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q2444. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 2017 and 1999.
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This entry incorporates text from “GloFish” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.