An overview of the results obtained with banding techniques which could be applied to Antarctic fish chromosomes till now is presented. This includes nucleolar organizers (NORs) staining by silver nitrate and chromomycin A3, C-banding and fluorescence in situ hybridization of molecular probes. The aim is to show their possible applications in comparative cytogenetics and evolutionary studies. In the light of some examples taken in our results, we try to demonstrate why the chromosome characters should be more informative when used within the lowest taxonomic levels, than for establishing phylogenies at family level.