Fish Encyclopedia
Search and identify 1,000+ fish species — freshwater, saltwater, reef, and pelagic — with habitat, size, diet, behavior, and how to tell them apart.
Mangrove Snapper
A grayish snapper common along mangrove shorelines and estuaries of the western Atlantic, showing a faint dark stripe through the eye and a pointed, angular head.
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Mangrove Jack
A deep red Indo-Pacific snapper whose juveniles grow up in mangrove estuaries and rivers, tolerating salinities from freshwater to full seawater.
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Mummichog
A stout, hardy killifish common in salt marshes and estuaries along the North American Atlantic coast, well known for its extreme tolerance of changing salinity and oxygen levels.
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Mono Argentus
A flat, disc-shaped, mirror-silver fish with tall yellow-tinged fins, commonly seen schooling in brackish estuaries and harbors across the Indo-Pacific.
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Mudskipper
An amphibious goby that spends much of its life out of water, hopping across mudflats on muscular pectoral fins. Bulging, periscope-like eyes let it watch for predators while it hunts and defends its burrow.
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Green Chromide
A deep-bodied cichlid from South Asian estuaries, olive-green with rows of shimmering pearly spots along its flanks. It is one of the largest brackish-water cichlids and an important species in coastal lagoon ecosystems.
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Gulf Menhaden
A deep-bodied, oily-scaled herring relative that forms enormous schools in Gulf of Mexico estuaries, playing a major role as a forage fish in coastal food webs.
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Japanese Halfbeak
A slim, silvery surface fish with a long lower jaw, common in coastal and brackish waters around Japan, Korea, and China.
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Gulf Pipefish
The Gulf pipefish is a small, slender pipefish common in seagrass beds and estuaries around the Gulf of Mexico and southeastern United States, notable for tolerating salinities ranging from full seawater to nearly fresh water.
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Knight Goby
A small, boldly patterned goby from Southeast Asian estuaries, pale gray-white with scattered black spots and blotches along its slender body. It perches on the bottom, propped on its fused pelvic fins, watching for small prey.
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Inland Silverside
A small, slender silverside native to Gulf and Atlantic coastal waters, notable for tolerating a wide range of salinities from brackish estuaries to inland reservoirs.
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Green Spotted Puffer
A small, popular aquarium puffer with a bright green, black-spotted back and white belly, native to brackish estuaries and mangrove creeks across Southeast Asia.
brackishHilsa Shad
An anadromous herring of the Bay of Bengal region, the Hilsa Shad undertakes long migrations up rivers such as the Ganges and Padma to spawn and holds major cultural significance across South Asia.
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Hogchoker
A small, tough-skinned estuarine sole tolerant of fresh to salt water, with a mottled brown crossbanded body, rounded outline, and no visible pectoral fins.
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Freshwater Moray
An unusual moray that spends much of its adult life in rivers and estuaries rather than the sea, identified by its slender olive-brown body and fine dark mottling.
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Giant Mudskipper
The largest common mudskipper species, a heavy-bodied, predatory amphibious goby that patrols mangrove mudflats across South and Southeast Asia.
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Four-Eyed Fish
A surface-dwelling brackish-water fish famous for eyes split into upper and lower halves, allowing it to see simultaneously above and below the waterline.
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Green Scat
A green-toned color variant of the Spotted Scat, with the same deep, disc-shaped body but a more uniform olive-green wash and lighter spotting. Found in the same brackish estuaries and harbors across the Indo-Pacific.
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Dragon Goby
The Dragon Goby is a long, eel-like fish with a violet sheen and a large upturned mouth, found burrowing in muddy estuaries along the Americas' Atlantic coast.
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Figure-Eight Puffer
A small brackish-water pufferfish named for the bold black figure-eight-shaped markings across its yellow-green back. Like other puffers, it can inflate its body with water as a defense against predators.
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Fingerfish
Another common name for the disc-shaped Mono, called Fingerfish for its thin, laterally compressed body. It schools in Indo-Pacific estuaries and coastal waters, flashing bright silver as it moves.
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European Flounder
The European flounder is a right-eyed flatfish notable for its unusual tolerance of low salinity, regularly venturing far up rivers and estuaries.
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Estuarine Stonefish
A heavily camouflaged, encrusted-looking fish that lies motionless on muddy estuary and mangrove bottoms across the Indo-Pacific, bearing venomous dorsal spines as a natural defense.
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Diamond Killifish
A tiny, unusually deep-bodied killifish from Gulf Coast salt marshes, named for its compressed, diamond-shaped profile. It tolerates wide swings in salinity within tidal creeks and marsh pools.
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Caspian Lamprey
The Caspian lamprey is a parasitic, jawless fish that lives in the brackish Caspian Sea and migrates into tributary rivers of Russia, Iran, and neighboring countries to spawn.
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Bumblebee Goby
The Bumblebee Goby is a tiny, boldly banded fish resembling its namesake insect, found in brackish mangrove and estuarine waters of Southeast Asia.
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Chinese Sturgeon
The Chinese sturgeon is a critically endangered anadromous fish that spends its adult life in coastal Chinese seas before migrating far up the Yangtze River to spawn.
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Common Archerfish
A deep-bodied, silvery fish famed for spitting jets of water to knock insects off overhanging vegetation into the water.
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Blueback Herring
A slender, silvery anadromous herring closely related to the Alewife, distinguished by its deep blue-green back, that migrates from Atlantic coastal waters into freshwater rivers each spring to spawn.
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California Killifish
A stout, hardy killifish native to salt marshes and estuaries from California to Baja California. It tolerates extreme swings in salinity within tidal sloughs and lagoons.
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Colombian Shark Catfish
A sleek, silver, shark-shaped catfish with a tall dorsal fin and long barbels, native to brackish river mouths along the Pacific coast of Central and South America.
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Bumblebee Fish
A tiny, boldly banded goby popular in brackish aquariums, named for its wasp-like black-and-yellow stripes.
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One of the largest anadromous fish in the world, native to the Caspian and Black Sea basins. It migrates into major rivers like the Volga and Danube to spawn and is critically endangered.
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Black Drum
The Black Drum is a deep-bodied, greyish-black sciaenid with distinctive chin barbels, found in estuaries and coastal waters from the mid-Atlantic to Argentina.
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Allis Shad
A large anadromous herring relative native to Europe's Atlantic coast, the Allis Shad spends most of its life at sea but migrates into large rivers each spring to spawn, forming runs that have been much reduced.
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Bay Pipefish
The bay pipefish is a long, slender pipefish common in eelgrass beds and estuaries along the Pacific coast of North America, closely matching the green-brown color and shape of the eelgrass blades it hides among.
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Bay Anchovy
One of the most abundant fish in Atlantic and Gulf Coast estuaries, the tiny Bay Anchovy is a key forage species that tolerates a wide range of salinities from open bays to nearly fresh tidal creeks.
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American Shad
The largest member of the herring family in North America, this deep-bodied, silvery, anadromous fish spends most of its life at sea before migrating up coastal rivers each spring to spawn.
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Barred Mudskipper
An amphibious mangrove goby with bulging eyes and muscular fins that lets it crawl and hop across exposed mud at low tide throughout the Indo-Pacific.
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Alewife
A small, silvery anadromous herring native to the Atlantic coast of North America, recognizable by a single dark shoulder spot, that migrates from the ocean into freshwater rivers and lakes each spring to spawn.
brackishAtlantic Silverside
A slender, schooling coastal fish common along the western Atlantic shoreline, marked by a bright silver stripe running down each flank.
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Banded Archerfish
A silvery, deep-bodied fish famous for spitting jets of water to knock insects off overhanging vegetation into the water below. Bold dark bands and a flattened, upturned mouth make it easy to recognize.
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Atlantic Croaker
The Atlantic Croaker is a silvery-bronze estuarine fish with a single chin barbel and faint wavy mottling, abundant along the western Atlantic coast.
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Atlantic Sturgeon
The Atlantic sturgeon is a large, armored anadromous fish of eastern North America, spending years at sea before returning to coastal rivers to spawn.
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Atlantic Mudskipper
An amphibious goby that hops and skips across mangrove mudflats using muscular pectoral fins, breathing air through its skin and mouth lining when out of water.
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The Australian lamprey is a primitive, eel-like jawless fish that spends part of its life as a marine parasite before migrating into coastal rivers of southern Australia and New Zealand to spawn.
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Atlantic Needlefish
A long, slender silvery fish with a needle-like toothy beak, common in coastal and estuarine waters of the western Atlantic where it hunts small fish near the surface.
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Baltic Herring
A smaller, brackish-water subspecies of the Atlantic Herring, the Baltic Herring is adapted to the low-salinity Baltic Sea and forms one of the region's most abundant and ecologically important schooling fish.
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