diff --git a/var/spack/repos/builtin/packages/bowtie/package.py b/var/spack/repos/builtin/packages/bowtie/package.py
index 021b50c4777877060f15b7eaccc90653da170859..3d3bf619a53f64208d22bb30b588515a5b20ecd3 100644
--- a/var/spack/repos/builtin/packages/bowtie/package.py
+++ b/var/spack/repos/builtin/packages/bowtie/package.py
@@ -38,6 +38,7 @@ class Bowtie(MakefilePackage):
     variant('tbb', default=False, description='Use Intel thread building block')
 
     depends_on('tbb', when='+tbb')
+    depends_on('zlib')
 
     # See: https://github.com/BenLangmead/bowtie/issues/87, a
     # different fix is in the FreeBSD ports/package tree