Which Babylonian flood hero appears in the Epic of Gilgamesh?

Utnapishtim is the Babylonian flood hero in the Epic of Gilgamesh.

In the flood story preserved in the Epic of Gilgamesh, the god Ea warns Utnapishtim to build a boat and save living creatures, his family, craftsmen, and valuable possessions. The story is told within the epic when Gilgamesh meets Utnapishtim and seeks the secret of immortality.

Utnapishtim’s narrative shares several motifs with the Genesis account of Noah: divine warning, a large boat, preservation of life, a destructive flood, birds sent out after the waters subside, and a sacrifice afterward. The two stories are not identical, and they belong to different literary and religious traditions.

Utnapishtim is sometimes confused with Atrahasis, the flood survivor in another Mesopotamian work. They are closely related figures in the broader flood tradition, but the name associated specifically with the Epic of Gilgamesh is Utnapishtim.