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

Turquoise Killifish

Turquoise Killifish

A vividly colored annual killifish from southeastern Africa's temporary pools, notable for having the shortest lifespan of any known vertebrate, typically just a few months in the wild.

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.

Splake

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.

Spotted Bass

A compact black bass species with rows of small dark spots below the lateral line, native to the Mississippi and Gulf drainages and often found alongside Largemouth and Smallmouth Bass.

Korean 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.

Sparkling Gourami

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.

Desert 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.

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.

Flowerhorn

A vividly colored, artificially bred cichlid hybrid famous for its bulbous head hump and bold markings, with no wild ancestral population.

Freshwater Goby

A small stream-dwelling goby of East Asia, unusual among gobies for living its whole life cycle in fresh or amphidromous river systems.

Silver Tip Tetra

Silver Tip Tetra

A bronze-bodied Brazilian characin notable for lacking an adipose fin and for its bright white-tipped fins, active in fast-moving shoals.

Yellowfin 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.

Sockeye Salmon

A Pacific salmon renowned for its brilliant crimson spawning coloration and strong dependence on lake habitat during its freshwater juvenile stage.

Silver Dollar

A disc-shaped, silvery Amazonian characin closely related to piranhas but almost entirely herbivorous, known for grazing flooded forest vegetation.

Southern Platyfish

Southern Platyfish

The full common name for the widely kept platy, the southern platyfish is a small, hardy livebearer native to Mexico, Belize, and Guatemala, prized for its color variety and easy breeding.

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.

Tench

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.

Suckermouth Catfish

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.

Threadfin Rainbowfish

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.

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.

Striped Panchax

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.

Serpae Tetra

A vividly red-bodied tetra with a bold black shoulder patch, known for its assertive, nippy temperament within shoaling groups.

Silver Bream

A silvery European freshwater fish with notably large, protruding eyes, often confused with young Common Bream but distinguished by its larger scales.

South American Lungfish

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.

Steel-blue Killifish

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.

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.

Sepik Rainbowfish

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.

Skipjack 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.

Samurai 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.

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.

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.

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.

Smallmouth Bass

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.

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.

Snakeskin Gourami

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.

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.

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.

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.

Rainbow Killifish

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.

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.

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.

Red Devil Cichlid

Red Devil Cichlid

A bold, thick-lipped Nicaraguan cichlid known for its fiery orange-red or white coloration and famously feisty, combative temperament.

Rubber Lip Pleco

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.

Shovelnose Sturgeon

Shovelnose Sturgeon

The shovelnose sturgeon is the smallest and most abundant North American sturgeon, a slender river fish with a flattened snout and a thin whip-like tail filament.

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.

Sailfin Catfish

Sailfin Catfish

A large South American armored catfish with a tall sail-like dorsal fin, popular in aquariums and now a widespread invasive species in warm freshwater habitats worldwide.

Rummynose Tetra

Rummynose Tetra

A slender silvery tetra known for its bright red-orange snout and a bold black-and-white striped tail, prized for tight, synchronized shoaling.

Reticulated Hillstream Loach

Reticulated Hillstream Loach

The Reticulated Hillstream Loach is a flat, disc-shaped fish from Vietnamese mountain streams, patterned with an intricate net-like design and adapted to cling to rocks in swift current.