diff --git a/skimage/data/chessboard_GRAY_U16B.tif b/skimage/data/chessboard_GRAY_U16B.tif
new file mode 100644
index 00000000..f1230ba2
Binary files /dev/null and b/skimage/data/chessboard_GRAY_U16B.tif differ
diff --git a/skimage/io/tests/test_pil.py b/skimage/io/tests/test_pil.py
index b01bd42f..021c74ea 100644
--- a/skimage/io/tests/test_pil.py
+++ b/skimage/io/tests/test_pil.py
@@ -58,6 +58,13 @@ def test_imread_uint16():
     assert img.dtype == np.uint16
     assert_array_almost_equal(img, expected)
 
+@skipif(not PIL_available)
+def test_imread_uint16_big_endian():
+    expected = np.load(os.path.join(data_dir, 'chessboard_GRAY_U8.npy'))
+    img = imread(os.path.join(data_dir, 'chessboard_GRAY_U16B.tif'))
+    assert img.dtype == np.dtype('>u2')
+    assert_array_almost_equal(img, expected)
+
 
 class TestSave:
     def roundtrip(self, dtype, x, scaling=1):