Dataset is an Excel file with 6 tabs as follows: 1) Changelog: Documentation of additions and changes to file since its creation 2) Citations: Listing of citations with full references used in other 4 tabs 3-6) Fish, Herps, Zoops, Benthos: For each of these 4 groups, a listing where rows are unique taxa and columns are the attributes recorded for them as described in the journal manuscript. This dataset is associated with the following publication: Trebitz, A., M. Sykes, and J. Barge. A reference inventory for aquatic fauna of the Laurentian Great Lakes. JOURNAL OF GREAT LAKES RESEARCH. International Association for Great Lakes Research, Ann Arbor, MI, USA, 45(6): 1036-1046, (2019).