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.
Largemouth Bass
A robust, olive-green freshwater fish with a distinctive dark lateral stripe and a very large mouth, one of North America's most popular sport fish now established worldwide.
freshwater
Leopard Bush Fish
A round-bodied Congo basin ambush predator patterned with dark leopard-like spots, prized in aquariums for its striking camouflage and air-breathing labyrinth organ.
freshwater
Montezuma Swordtail
A Mexican livebearer notable for the male's exceptionally long, trailing sword-shaped tail extension, among the longest relative to body size of any swordtail.
freshwater
Least Killifish
One of the smallest vertebrates in North America, the least killifish is a tiny livebearer native to slow, vegetated wetlands of the southeastern United States despite its misleading name.
freshwater
Lionhead Cichlid
Also known as the buffalohead cichlid, this Congo River rapids specialist gets its "lionhead" nickname from the rounded, maned appearance of the fatty hump on a mature male's forehead.
freshwater
Licorice Gourami
A tiny, secretive Sumatran blackwater specialist with a dark body crossed by iridescent turquoise stripes and red-edged fins, one of several closely related "licorice gourami" species from acidic peat swamps.
freshwater
Murray River Rainbowfish
A slender, schooling rainbowfish native to Australia's Murray-Darling river system, displaying subtle pink-red stripes and yellow-tinted fins along its silvery-blue body.
freshwater
Mbu Pufferfish
The Mbu Pufferfish is the largest freshwater pufferfish species, native to Central Africa's Congo River system and known for its maze-like yellow body markings.
freshwater
Florida Gar
A heavily spotted gar endemic to the Florida peninsula, recognized by dark markings covering its head, body, and every fin.
freshwater
Marbled Hatchetfish
A tiny South American fish with a deep, keeled belly and enlarged pectoral fins that let it skim and glide just above the water surface to escape predators.
freshwater
Gudgeon
A small, bottom-dwelling cyprinid with a pair of sensory barbels at the mouth corners, the gudgeon forages over gravel and sand in loose shoals, well camouflaged among stones.
freshwater
Julii Corydoras
A small, finely spotted armored catfish from coastal Brazil, frequently confused in the trade with the very similar Corydoras trilineatus.
freshwater
Neon Rainbowfish
A small, brilliantly colored rainbowfish from New Guinea whose males flash iridescent blue-violet when displaying to rivals or mates.
freshwater
Lake Sturgeon
The lake sturgeon is a large, armored, long-lived freshwater fish native to the Great Lakes and Mississippi basin, recognizable by its bony scute rows and shovel-shaped snout.
freshwater
Kuhli Loach
An eel-like, nocturnal loach with a banded body that burrows through substrate in streams across Southeast Asia.
freshwater
Giant Gourami
The largest gourami species, a deep-bodied Southeast Asian labyrinth fish that can exceed two feet in length and shifts from an insect-eating juvenile diet to a largely plant-based adult diet.
freshwaterGuppy
A small livebearing fish native to northeastern South America, famous for the males' vividly colored, ornately shaped tails and its worldwide popularity in the aquarium hobby.
freshwater
Green Tiger Barb
A green-toned color variant of the popular Tiger Barb, retaining the same bold dark bands and active, schooling nature as the classic orange form.
freshwater
Kryptopterus
A small, almost entirely transparent Southeast Asian catfish whose internal skeleton and organs are visible through its glass-like body, popular in the aquarium trade.
freshwater
Green Terror
A robust, iridescent-green South American cichlid whose bold turquoise spangling and feisty temperament earned it its combative common name.
freshwater
Koi
Ornamental color varieties of the Amur carp, selectively bred in Japan for centuries into hundreds of red, white, black, and gold patterns kept in decorative ponds worldwide.
freshwater
Kissing Gourami
A large, elongated Southeast Asian gourami famous for its thick, protrusible lips, which it uses to graze algae and to engage in "kissing" contests, an actual test of strength between rivals.
freshwater
Iridescent Shark
Despite its name, this is a large freshwater catfish, not a shark, recognized in juveniles by an iridescent sheen and dark stripes that fade with age.
freshwater
Horseface Loach
The Horseface Loach is a slender, burrowing loach recognized by its elongated, downturned snout, native to sandy-bottomed rivers of Southeast Asia.
freshwater
Jaguar Cichlid
A large, powerfully built Central American predator whose irregular black leopard-like blotches over a pale body give it its common name.
freshwater
Kribensis
A small, colorful West African dwarf cichlid best known for the vivid magenta belly females display, especially during courtship.
freshwater
Huchen
The huchen, or Danube salmon, is Europe's largest freshwater salmonid, a powerful river predator native to the Danube basin that has become increasingly rare due to damming and habitat fragmentation.
freshwater
Hillstream Loach
A flattened, disc-bodied loach adapted to cling to rocks in fast mountain streams, using its wide fanned fins as a natural suction system.
freshwater
Golden Shiner
A slender, deep-bodied North American minnow with brassy golden-silver sides, the golden shiner is among the continent's most widely used baitfish, thriving in weedy ponds and slow-moving water.
freshwater
Glass Knifefish
A slender, near-transparent South American fish that swims using a continuous rippling fin and emits a weak electric field to sense its surroundings.
freshwater
Gold Gourami
A selectively bred, solid golden-yellow color variety of the Three Spot Gourami, developed for the aquarium trade and sharing the same hardy, adaptable biology as its wild-type relative.
freshwater
Ide
A robust, silvery cyprinid of large European rivers and lakes, the ide (commonly bred as the golden 'orfe') forms active surface shoals and is a widely stocked ornamental pond fish worldwide.
freshwater
Knife Livebearer
A slender Central American livebearer named for the sharp, blade-like keel along its belly, an adaptation believed to aid rapid escape jumps.
freshwater
Grayling
A slender freshwater salmonid relative famed for its tall, sail-like dorsal fin, native to cold, clear rivers of Europe.
freshwater
Green Sunfish
A hardy, aggressive small sunfish with a large mouth and dark greenish-blue body marked with yellow-green flecking, tolerant of poor water conditions where few other sunfish can survive.
freshwater
Lacustrine Rainbowfish
A brilliant turquoise-blue rainbowfish endemic to Lake Kutubu in Papua New Guinea, now considered endangered due to pollution linked to nearby natural gas extraction.
freshwater
Kokanee Salmon
Kokanee are a landlocked, non-migratory form of sockeye salmon that spend their entire life in freshwater lakes, turning bright red during their autumn spawning run into tributary streams.
freshwater
Jack Dempsey
A robust Central American cichlid named after a boxing champion for its feisty temperament, known for iridescent blue-green speckling that develops as it matures.
freshwater
Harlequin Rasbora
A small, deep-bodied freshwater fish with a coppery-orange body and a distinctive black triangular patch covering the rear half, native to the blackwater streams of Southeast Asia.
freshwater
Head and Tail Light Tetra
An Amazon and Guiana river characin named for its glowing metallic eye and tail-base spots, resembling a pair of tiny headlights.
freshwater
Honey Gourami
A small, peaceful South Asian labyrinth fish whose breeding males flush a warm honey-gold to orange color with a dark throat and belly, making it a popular gentle community fish.
freshwater
Flathead Catfish
A massive, flat-headed catfish with a mottled yellow-brown body and a protruding lower jaw, known for its solitary, ambush-predator lifestyle in large river systems.
freshwater
Fathead Minnow
A small, hardy North American minnow famous as baitfish and a standard toxicology test species, able to survive low-oxygen, turbid water most fish avoid.
freshwater
Far Eastern Brook Lamprey
A small, jawless, non-parasitic lamprey native to clear freshwater streams across Japan, Korea, and mainland East Asia, spending most of its life as a burrowing larva before a brief non-feeding adult stage.
freshwater
Firemouth Cichlid
A Central American cichlid famous for the fiery red-orange throat it flares open to intimidate rivals during territorial disputes.
freshwater
Forktail Rainbowfish
A tiny, colorful blue-eye rainbowfish from New Guinea named for its distinctively forked, yellow-edged tail fin.
freshwater
Freshwater Drum
The Freshwater Drum is the only entirely freshwater member of the drum family, recognized by its humpbacked silvery body and tail-extending lateral line.
freshwater
Flagtail Prochilodus
The Flagtail Prochilodus is a schooling South American river fish named for its bold red-and-black striped tail fin, which resembles a flag.
freshwater