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

Red Bream

The red bream, or blackspot seabream, is a pink-tinged sparid with a dark shoulder spot that lives over rocky and sandy bottoms in the northeastern Atlantic and Mediterranean.

Red Gurnard

A reddish-pink bottom-dweller of European seas, the Red Gurnard has an armored head and finger-like pectoral rays it uses to walk and sense prey along the seafloor.

Sea Lamprey

The sea lamprey is a primitive, jawless, eel-like fish famous for its parasitic sucker-disc mouth ringed with sharp teeth, which it uses to latch onto and feed on other fish.

Sea Trout

Sea Trout is the migratory, sea-run form of the brown trout, spending its adult life feeding along European coastlines before returning to rivers to spawn.

Red Hake

Red hake is a slender, tapering groundfish of the western North Atlantic shelf, identified by its reddish-brown color, two dorsal fins, and long thread-like pelvic fin filaments.

Sand Sole

A northeastern Pacific flatfish identified by long, thread-like free dorsal fin rays at the front of its head, light brown spotted body, and shallow sandy habitat.

Scaled Sardine

A small, deep-bodied silvery fish that forms dense inshore schools along the Western Atlantic coast, easily confused with other small herring-like species.

Seamoth

A small, armor-plated bottom-dweller with wing-like pectoral fins, the Seamoth crawls across sandy Indo-Pacific seafloors using its fins almost like legs.

Pollock

A streamlined, greenish-bronze cod relative that schools around rocky reefs and wrecks in the northeastern Atlantic, told apart from cod by its protruding lower jaw and lack of a chin barbel.

Short-snouted Seahorse

Short-snouted Seahorse

The short-snouted seahorse is a stocky, spiny-headed species found in coastal waters of the Mediterranean and eastern Atlantic, distinguished from its long-snouted relative by a notably short, thick snout.

Senorita

A slender, golden-brown kelp forest wrasse of the California coast known for its cleaning behavior, picking parasites off larger fish such as sheephead.

Pouting

Also called bib, the Pouting is a deep-bodied, coppery-bronze gadoid common around rocky reefs and wrecks of the northeastern Atlantic and Mediterranean.

Pacific Cod

A heavy-bodied, bottom-dwelling relative of the Atlantic Cod found across the cold North Pacific, recognized by its large head, chin barbel, and mottled brown coloring.

Pacific Lamprey

Pacific Lamprey

The Pacific lamprey is a jawless, anadromous fish with a toothed sucking disc mouth, found along Pacific coastlines from Baja California to Japan and Alaska.

Rock Cook

A tiny olive-brown wrasse of northeastern Atlantic kelp reefs, the Rock Cook forages among rocks and crevices and can change sex during its lifetime.

Rock Goby

A small, mottled goby common in rocky tide pools along European and North African coasts, easily spotted darting between rocks at low tide.

Peacock Blenny

A shallow-water Mediterranean blenny in which breeding males grow a tall fleshy head crest and a bold eyespot on the dorsal fin.

Redbanded Seabream

Redbanded Seabream

The redbanded seabream is a deep-bodied, pinkish-red sparid marked by four to five dark vertical bands, found over rocky and sandy bottoms in the eastern Atlantic and Mediterranean.

Rosy Rockfish

A small, brightly colored rockfish with rose-pink coloring and dark saddle blotches, found on rocky reefs along the California coast.

Rock Gunnel

A slender, eel-like intertidal fish of the North Atlantic, the Rock Gunnel hides under rocks and seaweed and is marked by a row of pale-ringed spots along its dorsal fin.

Pipefish

A slender, elongated relative of the seahorse with a rigid, ring-plated body and tubular snout, commonly found camouflaged among seagrass and algae in coastal waters worldwide.

Needlefish

The common name for slender, surface-dwelling fish of the family Belonidae, recognized by long jaws lined with sharp teeth; the Needlefish (*Strongylura marina*) represents this widespread predatory group.

Pacific Halibut

Pacific Halibut

The Pacific halibut is a massive right-eyed flatfish of the cold North Pacific, closely related to the Atlantic halibut and among the largest bony fish in its range.

Molly Miller Blenny

Molly Miller Blenny

A hardy little blenny that perches motionless on shallow rocks in tropical Atlantic tide pools, easily recognized by the fringed tentacles above its eyes.

Mulloway

A large, powerful drum found around Australia, South Africa, and parts of Asia, known for its silvery body, bronze sheen, and impressive size.

Rainbow Wrasse

A slender Mediterranean and eastern-Atlantic wrasse; terminal males have a vivid orange zigzag stripe along a blue-green body.

Queenfish

A small, slender drum common in California bays and nearshore waters, notable for forming large, tightly packed schools near the surface.

Peacock Wrasse

A colorful Mediterranean and eastern Atlantic wrasse whose males display vivid green-blue bodies with orange spots and blue facial stripes, commonly seen darting among rocky reefs and seagrass beds.

Poor Cod

The poor cod is a small, golden-brown Gadidae common around rocky reefs and harbors of the northeastern Atlantic and Mediterranean, identified by its short chin barbel and dark pectoral-fin blotch.

Olive Flounder

A large, muscular East Asian coastal flatfish with olive-brown mottled skin, a big toothy mouth, and eyes on its left side, also known as Japanese flounder.

Ocean Pout

An eel-like bottom-dweller of the northwestern Atlantic, the Ocean Pout produces natural antifreeze proteins that let it stay active in near-freezing winter waters.

Pollack

Pollack is a streamlined cod relative of the northeastern Atlantic, found around rocky reefs and wrecks, identified by its curved lateral line and protruding lower jaw with no barbel.

Northern Pipefish

Northern Pipefish

A slender, bony-ringed relative of the seahorse that drifts vertically among eelgrass along the western Atlantic coast, camouflaged by its stick-like shape.

Long-snouted Seahorse

Long-snouted Seahorse

The long-snouted seahorse, also known as the spiny seahorse, is a slender species of the Mediterranean and northeastern Atlantic with a proportionally long snout and often ornate skin filaments used for camouflage in seagrass beds.

Pompano

A deep-bodied, silvery jack with a forked tail, found along sandy coastal shores of the eastern Atlantic and Mediterranean.

Quillback Rockfish

Quillback Rockfish

A mottled brown and orange rockfish with a tall, dark-blotched spiny dorsal fin that gives it a distinctive quill-like silhouette, commonly found around rocky reefs and kelp.

Petrale Sole

A slender, plain light-brown northeastern Pacific flatfish, more closely related to flounders than true soles, favoring sandy continental shelf bottoms.

Kingfish

Kingfish, led by the Northern Kingfish, are silvery-grey surf-zone drums with a chin barbel and diagonal body bars, common along Atlantic beaches.

Meagre

The Meagre is a large, golden-silver sciaenid of the eastern Atlantic and Mediterranean, among the biggest members of the drum family.

New Zealand Hagfish

New Zealand Hagfish

A jawless, eel-shaped scavenger that lives on muddy seafloor around New Zealand and southeastern Australia, known for producing copious defensive slime and feeding on carcasses and invertebrates on the seabed.

Lumpfish

Also called the lumpsucker, the Lumpfish is a rounded, scaleless North Atlantic fish that anchors to rocks with a sucker disc, and whose males guard the eggs after spawning.

Lumpsucker

A rounded, ball-shaped North Atlantic fish with rough tuberculate skin and a ventral sucker disc used to cling to rocks and kelp.

Ling Cod

A large, elongated predator of the North Pacific coast known for its mottled camouflage and cavernous, tooth-filled mouth. Despite the name, it is not a true cod but a member of the greenling family.

Lesser Amberjack

Lesser Amberjack

A small, deep-dwelling jack of the western Atlantic, distinguished from its larger amberjack relatives by its modest size and life around offshore reefs and wrecks.

Longhorn Sculpin

Longhorn Sculpin

A large, spiny-headed sculpin common on sandy and rocky seafloors along the northwest Atlantic coast, easily recognized by its oversized head and fan-like pectoral fins.

Ling

The ling is a long, eel-shaped member of the cod family found on deep rocky reefs of the northeastern Atlantic, distinguished by its elongated fins and single chin barbel.

Northern Sea Robin

Northern Sea Robin

A bottom-dwelling western Atlantic fish with an armored head and huge wing-like pectoral fins, using leg-like fin rays to walk across the seafloor.

Northern Kingfish

A slender surf-dwelling drum of the Atlantic coast, marked by bold dark diagonal bars and a distinctive elongated dorsal fin ray.