Abstract: The Eocene percifonn Tungtingichthys has been found widely spread over eastern and southem China Since the genus was first established by Liu et al. (1962), five species (T. gracilis, T. hsiawanpuensis, T. laianensis, T hongzeensis, and T. eocaenus) have been described from Hunan, Anhui, Jiangsu, Guangdong, Shandong and Liaoning Provinces (fig. 1). Most of the specimens are preserved in oil shale and are very difficult to prepare and for this reason previous descriptions are in many ways incomplete. The purpose of this paper is to redescribe the type species of the genus, T gracilis, based on newly prepared specimens collected from Hunan Province, to review their systematics and to compare Tungtingichthys with contemporaneous perciforms from other continents. The specimens used in this study include those from the collections of the IVPP and those newly collected by the senior author and her colleagues in 1991 from the type locality of the type species, i.e. Sanbanqiao (village), Shimen (town), Linli county, Hunan Province. After trying different ways of preparation with no success most of specimens are prepared mechanically with a thin needle. One of them (VI 1367) is prepared by transfer method.