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.
Silver Dollar
A disc-shaped, silvery Amazonian characin closely related to piranhas but almost entirely herbivorous, known for grazing flooded forest vegetation.
freshwater
Sparkling Gourami
A tiny, jewel-like Southeast Asian gourami covered in iridescent blue-green spangling and reddish stripes, small enough to be one of the smallest gouramis kept in aquariums.
freshwaterTench
A robust, olive-green European fish with a thick, slimy skin and tiny scales, favoring weedy, still waters and long valued by anglers and pond keepers alike.
freshwater
Suckermouth Catfish
A heavily armored South American catfish with a disc-shaped sucking mouth used to graze algae from rocks and wood, one of the most familiar aquarium fish worldwide.
freshwater
Splash Tetra
A small South American tetra famous for its extraordinary reproductive behavior of leaping out of water in pairs to lay eggs on overhanging leaves.
freshwater
Threadfin Rainbowfish
A tiny, delicate rainbowfish famed for the male's elongated, thread-like extensions on the dorsal and anal fins that trail behind the body.
freshwater
Swordtail
Named for the elongated, sword-like extension on the male's tail fin, this energetic livebearer from Mexico and Central America is a long-standing favorite in freshwater aquariums.
freshwater
Striped Panchax
A larger South Asian killifish, also called the golden wonder killifish, marked by bold dark horizontal stripes on a golden-olive body. It hunts insects near the surface of ponds and rice paddies.
freshwaterSplake
Splake are a fertile hybrid char produced by crossing brook trout and lake trout, combining the fast growth of brook trout with the longevity and deep-water habits of lake trout.
freshwater
Silver Arowana
A large, elongated freshwater fish with metallic silver scales and an upturned mouth, famous for leaping from the water surface to snatch insects and small prey.
freshwaterKorean Lamprey
The Korean lamprey is a small, non-parasitic jawless fish native to freshwater streams of the Korean Peninsula, feeding only during a long larval stage before a brief adult life.
freshwater
Silver Carp
A large, filter-feeding East Asian carp famous for leaping high out of the water when startled by boat noise, and notorious as an invasive species in North American rivers.
freshwaterDesert Rainbowfish
A hardy rainbowfish subspecies adapted to the arid rivers and isolated springs of central Australia, able to withstand extreme temperature swings and prolonged drought.
freshwaterFlowerhorn
A vividly colored, artificially bred cichlid hybrid famous for its bulbous head hump and bold markings, with no wild ancestral population.
freshwater
Smallmouth Bass
A bronze-green freshwater bass native to eastern North America, prized as a popular sport fish and recognized by its vertical dark bars and reddish eyes. It favors clear, rocky rivers, streams, and lakes.
freshwaterFreshwater Goby
A small stream-dwelling goby of East Asia, unusual among gobies for living its whole life cycle in fresh or amphidromous river systems.
freshwater
Silver Bream
A silvery European freshwater fish with notably large, protruding eyes, often confused with young Common Bream but distinguished by its larger scales.
freshwater
Silver Aba
A tail-less, eel-shaped African fish that swims by rippling a long dorsal fin and generates a weak electric field to sense its surroundings.
freshwaterYellowfin Rainbowfish
A slender rainbowfish endemic to Misool Island in Indonesia's West Papua region, named for its bright yellow unpaired fins that contrast with its silvery-olive body.
freshwater
Sterba's Corydoras
A popular armored catfish with a spotted body and bright orange pectoral fins, native to river tributaries along the Brazil-Bolivia border.
freshwater
Steelhead
The anadromous, sea-run form of rainbow trout, prized by anglers for its powerful runs and acrobatic leaps after migrating between rivers and the Pacific Ocean.
freshwater
Serpae Tetra
A vividly red-bodied tetra with a bold black shoulder patch, known for its assertive, nippy temperament within shoaling groups.
freshwater
Tanganyika Goby
A small, goby-shaped cichlid endemic to Lake Tanganyika's rocky shallows, grazing algae from wave-washed rocks and instantly recognizable by its blunt head and bottom-hugging posture.
freshwater
Sepik Rainbowfish
A deep-bodied rainbowfish from the floodplain lakes and swamps of the Sepik River in Papua New Guinea, covered in unusually fine, numerous scales.
freshwater
Thick-lipped Gourami
A small, hardy Myanmar labyrinth fish closely related to the Dwarf Gourami, distinguished by its noticeably thickened lips and reddish-blue diagonal banding in breeding males.
freshwater
Taimen
Taimen are the largest member of the salmon family, a giant freshwater predator native to remote rivers of Siberia and Mongolia that can live for decades and grow to well over a meter long.
freshwater
Stone Loach
The Stone Loach is a small, mottled bottom-dwelling fish common in clear European streams, often hiding under stones by day.
freshwater
Rudd
A deep-bodied European cyprinid known for brassy-gold flanks and vivid orange-red fins, the rudd frequents weedy lakes and slow rivers, feeding near the surface on insects and plants.
freshwater
Round Goby
A bottom-dwelling goby native to the Black and Caspian Sea basins, now a widespread invasive species in the Great Lakes and parts of Europe, recognized by its fused pelvic fins and dark spot on the front dorsal fin.
freshwater
Salmon
A large anadromous fish that hatches in freshwater rivers, migrates to the ocean to mature, and returns upriver to spawn, prized as an iconic sport fish.
freshwater
Steel-blue Killifish
A small, brightly colored West African killifish with a metallic blue body, red spotting, and an elongated lyre-shaped tail. It inhabits swamps and forest streams in Nigeria and Cameroon.
freshwater
Spotted Gar
A slender North American gar covered in dark spots from head to tail, often seen basking near the surface of quiet, weedy waters.
freshwater
Salvini Cichlid
A colorful, feisty Central American cichlid, the salvini displays a striking mix of gold, black, and turquoise, and is known for defending territory vigorously in the rivers and lakes it calls home.
freshwaterSamurai Gourami
A rare, elongated gourami relative from the Ganges-Brahmaputra basin, notable as one of the few labyrinth fish where males mouthbrood the eggs instead of building a bubble nest.
freshwater
Sauger
A slender, olive-gold relative of the walleye, best known for the rows of black spots on its spiny dorsal fin and its love of murky river currents.
freshwater
Senegal Bichir
An elongated, primitive-looking freshwater fish with a row of small spiny finlets along its back and paired lung-like breathing organs, retaining features from ancient ray-finned fish ancestors.
freshwater
Spined Loach
The Spined Loach is a small, striped bottom-dweller named for the tiny erectile spine beneath each eye, found in slow-moving European and Asian waters.
freshwater
Rainbow Killifish
A vividly patterned annual killifish from Mozambique's seasonal floodplain pools, with males displaying a rainbow of red, blue and orange scale colors.
freshwater
South American Lungfish
An eel-shaped South American fish that breathes almost entirely through a single lung, allowing it to survive dry seasons buried in mud.
freshwater
Redear Sunfish
A deep-bodied sunfish named for the bright red-orange margin on its black ear flap, notable for its specialized diet of snails and other mollusks in warm southern lakes and ponds.
freshwater
Snakeskin Gourami
A large, elongated Southeast Asian gourami named for the diagonal, snakeskin-like striping pattern across its olive-brown flanks, widely distributed through floodplain and canal habitats.
freshwater
Silver Lamprey
The silver lamprey is a freshwater parasitic lamprey of central and eastern North America, recognized by its single-cusped teeth and silvery body, native to Great Lakes and Mississippi River basin drainages.
freshwater
Rubber Lip Pleco
The Rubber Lip Pleco is a South American armored catfish with thick, fleshy lips adapted for grazing algae off rocks in fast-flowing rivers.
freshwaterSkipjack Shad
A slender, fast-swimming river herring native to major drainages of central and eastern North America, the Skipjack Shad is known for leaping clear of the water while pursuing prey near the surface.
freshwater
Piranha
A deep-bodied South American river fish famed for its sharp interlocking teeth and coordinated group feeding behavior, though most species are opportunistic scavengers.
freshwater
Shortnose Gar
A slim-bodied gar of the Mississippi basin with the shortest, broadest snout of the North American gars, sparsely marked with dark spots.
freshwater
Plecostomus
A heavily armored South American catfish with a downward-facing sucker mouth used to graze algae from rocks and submerged wood.
freshwater
Reedfish
A snake-bodied African fish with a lung-like breathing organ, related to bichirs, prized for its unusual elongated form and air-breathing ability.
freshwater