Fish Identifier

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.

all freshwater saltwater reef pelagic cartilaginous deepsea brackish

Witch Flounder

A slender, tongue-shaped deep-water North Atlantic flatfish with plain grayish-brown coloration, fine scales, and a preference for cold muddy shelf and slope bottoms.

Whipnose Anglerfish

A deep-sea anglerfish with an extraordinarily long, whip-like fishing rod, often exceeding its own body length, tipped with a luminous lure trailed out in the darkness to draw in curious prey.

Tripod Fish

An abyssal fish that props itself above the seafloor on three elongated fin rays, forming a tripod, and waits motionless facing into the current to ambush tiny drifting prey.

Telescopefish

A slender deep-sea fish named for its forward-directed, tubular telescoping eyes, which provide sharp binocular vision to detect faint prey silhouettes in near-total darkness.

Warsaw Grouper

A massive, deep-dwelling western Atlantic grouper with a dark brownish-red body, oversized head, and a second dorsal spine noticeably longer than the others.

Viperfish

The viperfish is a deep-sea predator famous for its oversized, needle-like fangs and a light-tipped dorsal fin ray used as a lure in the dark mesopelagic zone.

Stoplight Loosejaw

Stoplight Loosejaw

A deep-sea dragonfish with a hinge-less lower jaw and a rare ability to emit and see red bioluminescent light, invisible to most other deep-sea animals, effectively a private searchlight.

Snowy Grouper

A dark gray-brown deepwater grouper of the western Atlantic; juveniles are boldly marked with white spots that fade to a plainer, darker pattern in large adults.

Sixgill Shark

A massive, ancient-lineage deep-sea shark with six gill slits instead of the usual five, found from shallow fjords to depths beyond 2,000 m.

Slickhead

A dark, soft-bodied deep-sea fish named for its smooth, scaleless head, drifting slowly along cold continental slopes far beyond the reach of sunlight.

Bristlemouth

A tiny, worldwide deep-sea fish of the genus Cyclothone believed to be the most numerous vertebrate on Earth by sheer population size.

Snailfish

A tadpole-shaped, scaleless fish family found from shallow tide pools to the deepest ocean trenches; hadal-zone species hold the record for the deepest fish ever observed.

Sloane's Viperfish

A slender deep-sea predator armed with needle-like fangs so long they cannot close inside its mouth, along with a light-tipped dorsal spine used to lure prey close.

Sea Hagfish

The sea hagfish is a primitive, eel-shaped jawless fish that scavenges on the deep, cold seafloor of the North Atlantic and produces enormous amounts of defensive slime.

Speckled Hind

A reddish-brown to blackish western Atlantic grouper densely covered in small pale blue-white spots, giving rise to its nickname the "strawberry grouper."

Spotted Wolffish

Spotted Wolffish

A large, deep-water wolffish covered in bold dark spots, found in cold Arctic and North Atlantic waters on rocky and gravel seafloor.

Sabertooth Fish

Sabertooth Fish

A slender deep-sea predator with oversized fang-like teeth and unusual tubular, upward-angled eyes that help it spot the silhouettes of prey against faint downwelling light.

Rex Sole

A slender, deep-dwelling northeastern Pacific flatfish notable for unusually long pectoral fins and plain light brown coloration on cold continental shelf and slope bottoms.

Northern Wolffish

Northern Wolffish

The largest wolffish species, the Northern Wolffish is a plain grey-brown, deep-water predator of the North Atlantic and Arctic with powerful crushing jaws.

Oarfish

An extraordinarily long, silver, ribbon-shaped deep-sea fish with a red crest and trailing fin rays, rarely seen alive at the surface and among the longest bony fish known.

Pacific Blackdragon

Pacific Blackdragon

An eel-like deep-sea dragonfish whose females are entirely jet-black with a long chin barbel, while the tiny, non-feeding males look almost nothing like them.

Megamouth Shark

Megamouth Shark

An enormous, gentle filter-feeding shark with a massive rounded mouth, discovered only in 1976 and still one of the rarest sharks on record.

Pelican Eel

A deep-sea fish named for its enormous pelican-like pouch of a mouth, which it can expand to engulf prey and water, then slowly expel excess water while retaining any captured prey.

Pacific Hagfish

Pacific Hagfish

The Pacific hagfish is a jawless, eel-shaped deep-sea scavenger of the eastern Pacific known for releasing thick defensive slime and for feeding on carcasses on the ocean floor.

Longspine Snapper

Longspine Snapper

The longspine snapper is a slender, bright red deepwater snapper known for an elongated filament trailing from its dorsal fin, found on steep offshore slopes across the Indo-Pacific.

Lanternfish

Lanternfish are small, extremely abundant mesopelagic fish found worldwide, recognized by rows of light-producing photophores along their silvery bodies and large low-light eyes.

Gulper Eel

A bizarre deep-sea eel with a massively oversized, hinged jaw and a whip-like tail far longer than its body, adapted to swallow prey larger than itself in the food-scarce abyss.

Hatchetfish

Hatchetfish are small, silvery deep-sea fish named for their laterally compressed, blade-like body and large upward-pointing tubular eyes adapted to detect faint light above.

Greenland Shark

Greenland Shark

A massive, slow-moving Arctic shark believed to be the longest-lived vertebrate on Earth, with lifespans possibly exceeding 250 years.

Gulf Hagfish

The Gulf hagfish is a small, jawless scavenger found in deep offshore waters of the Gulf of Mexico, living on soft sediment far below the sunlit zone.

Grenadier

Grenadiers, or rattails, are deep-sea fish found on ocean slopes worldwide, unmistakable for their oversized head tapering into a long, thin, whip-like tail with no true tail fin.

Greenland Halibut

Greenland Halibut

A cold-water, deep-sea North Atlantic and Arctic flatfish with a dark body on both sides, a large toothy mouth, and a less flattened posture than typical flounders.

Frilled Shark

An eel-like, primitive deep-sea shark often called a living fossil, with six frilly gill slits and rows of needle-like teeth for catching soft-bodied prey.

Football Fish

A round, warty deep-sea anglerfish whose much larger females dangle a bioluminescent lure from a spine above the mouth to draw prey through the permanent darkness of the deep ocean.

Goblin Shark

A rare, pink-skinned deep-sea shark with a long, blade-like snout and jaws that shoot forward to snatch prey in an instant.

Fangtooth

The fangtooth is a small, deep-sea fish with the largest teeth relative to body size of any fish, identified by its oversized fangs, armored head, and compact dark body.

Deep-sea Lizardfish

Deep-sea Lizardfish

A hardy abyssal ambush predator that rests motionless on the deep seafloor, using a large tooth-lined mouth to seize whatever prey passes close by.

European Ling

A very large, elongated, eel-shaped cod relative found on deep rocky and muddy grounds along the continental shelf edge of the northeastern Atlantic.

Dragonfish

Dragonfish are elongated, predatory deep-sea fish with needle-sharp teeth and a long luminous chin barbel used to lure prey in the permanently dark mesopelagic zone.

Deep-sea Smelt

A small, silvery-bodied deep-sea fish that drifts through the dark midwater zone feeding on tiny plankton, forming a key link in deep ocean food webs.

Dover Sole

The Dover sole is a slippery-skinned, right-eyed flatfish of the North Pacific, unusual among soles for living on deep continental slope bottoms far offshore.

Deep-sea Hatchetfish

Deep-sea Hatchetfish

A small, silvery, laterally flattened deep-sea fish shaped like a hatchet blade, using rows of downward-pointing light organs to mask its silhouette from predators lurking below.

Coelacanth

The coelacanth is an ancient, deep-dwelling lobe-finned fish once known only from fossils, famously rediscovered alive off South Africa in 1938.

Cusk Eel

An elongated, eel-shaped deep-sea fish whose family holds the record for the deepest fish ever documented, recovered from a trench nearly 8,400 meters down.

Cookiecutter Shark

Cookiecutter Shark

A small, cigar-shaped deep-sea shark known for gouging round cookie-shaped plugs of flesh from much larger animals, including whales and other sharks.

Blue Ling

A slender, deep-water relative of the cod, the Blue Ling lives along northeastern Atlantic continental slopes and forms dense spawning aggregations at specific deep-sea sites.

Coffinfish

A rotund, soft-skinned anglerfish relative that shuffles along the deep seafloor on stubby, arm-like fins and dangles a tiny lure to attract prey close to its wide mouth.

Bigfin Squid Fish

Despite the common name, this is not a true fish but a rarely filmed deep-sea cephalopod, famous for extraordinarily long elbowed arms trailing beneath a small gelatinous body.