Sixteen species of aquatic biota from the lower reach of the Yangtze River including fishes, crabs and shrimps were collected and analyzed for 13 polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs) congeners. All the PBDEs congeners except BDE-17 were detectable in the samples indicating that the aquatic biota from the lower reach of the Yangtze River are widely exposed to these pollutants. The Sigma(12)PBDEs ranged from 3.52 to 603.69 ng/g lipid (0.032-62.69 ng/g wet wt), with a mean of 44.04 ng/g lipid (2.69 ng/g wet wt). The PBDEs levels in the Yangtze River aquatic biota were low to average compared to PBDEs levels in aquatic biota around the world. The predominant congeners were BDE-47, BDE-28, BDE-154, BDE-100 and BDE-153. The proportion of BDE-28 seemed to be relatively high which was different from the result in other studies around the world but consistent with the results in China. The congener pattern of the sample was similar to the pattern in the sediment from the Yangtze River which implies that sediment may be an important PBDEs source for aquatic biota in the lower reach of the Yangtze River. Although the PBDEs levels in aquatic biota this area is comparable to or even lower than that in other areas in China, such as the Pearl River Delta and the Laizhou Bay, the increasing textiles, chemical and electronic industry may bring more and more PBDEs contamination to the Yangtze River Delta. The fact that PBDEs were detectable in all the biota samples from the lower reach of the Yangtze River should be an alarm for increasing risk in the Yangtze River Delta, East China.