This study was undertaken to examine the culturable bacterial flora in the intestinal tract of pufferfish Takifugu rubripes reared in an indoor tank. Viable counts of intestinal bacteria ranged from 2.1×10⁶ to 3.5×10⁷ CFU/g. All 79 isolates were closely related to Enterovibrio nigricans (31 isolates), Vibrio harveyi (14), Marinomonas aquimarina (5), V. ichthyoenteri (5), Pseudoalteromonas prydzensis (4), V. scophthalmi (4), V. splendidus (4), V. campbellii (3), V. furnisii (2), V. ponticus (2), Shewanella algae (1), S. japonica (1), V. alginolyticus (1), V. rotiferianus (1) and V. parahaemolyticus (1) with similarities of 95.9-100%. Opportunistic bacteria such as V. splendidus, V. harveyi, V. ichthyoenteri, V. alginolyticus and V. parahaemolyticus were detected in one to four of all four healthy pufferfish specimens