Maurice Kottelat (born 16 July 1957[1] in Delémont, Switzerland[2]) is a Swiss ichthyologist specializing in Eurasian freshwater fishes.
In 1980 he went to Thailand where he began his field research on Southeast Asian and Indonesian fresh water fishes.
[4] Together with Dr. Tan Heok Hui he worked in Sumatra, where they discovered Paedocypris progenetica, which is considered the smallest fish in the world.
[5] In 2007 he published a Handbook of European Freshwater Fishes together with Jörg Freyhof.
For most of his career, he has held no academic position but worked as a "freelance taxonomist".