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.
Atlantic Menhaden
A deep-bodied, oily, silvery schooling fish found in vast numbers along the U.S. Atlantic coast, notable for a large dark shoulder spot and its outsized ecological role as a filter-feeding forage species.
pelagic
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.
freshwater
Pacific Herring
A slender, silvery schooling fish closely related to the Atlantic Herring, found in cold coastal waters across the North Pacific, where it forms a critical forage base for fish, seabirds, and marine mammals.
pelagicIndian Oil Sardine
A small, oil-rich pelagic fish abundant along India's western coast and the wider northern Indian Ocean, the Indian Oil Sardine forms massive schools and is one of the region's most heavily monitored fisheries species.
pelagic
European Anchovy
A slender, small-bodied schooling fish with a distinctive pointed snout and underslung mouth, found in enormous shoals along European and North African coasts and throughout the Mediterranean.
pelagic
Butterfish
A disc-shaped, silvery schooling fish of the northwestern Atlantic shelf, the Butterfish migrates seasonally between inshore and offshore waters and often shelters near jellyfish as a juvenile.
pelagic
Bala Shark
A torpedo-shaped, silver freshwater fish named for its shark-like body outline, though it is a true minnow relative, not a shark. Bold black margins on its fins make it a striking, fast-swimming schooler of Southeast Asian rivers.
freshwater
Gizzard Shad
A deep-bodied, silvery freshwater fish easily recognized by its blunt, rounded snout and long, whip-like filament trailing from the last dorsal fin ray, common in rivers, lakes, and reservoirs across North America.
freshwater
American Gizzard Shad
A deep-bodied, blunt-snouted herring relative common in lakes and rivers across eastern and central North America, the American Gizzard Shad is a highly abundant forage fish named for its muscular, gizzard-like stomach.
freshwaterPacific Sardine
A silvery, spot-flanked schooling fish found along the Pacific coast of North America, famous for boom-and-bust population cycles driven by shifting ocean temperatures and historically massive coastal schools.
pelagicJapanese Sardine
A schooling pelagic fish abundant in the waters around Japan, the Japanese Sardine undergoes dramatic multi-decade population cycles and forms one of the largest single-species biomasses in the northwest Pacific.
pelagic
Golden Trout
One of the most brilliantly colored freshwater fish in North America, native to a small area of high-elevation streams in California's Sierra Nevada, marked with vivid golden-orange flanks and crimson stripes.
freshwater
Yellow Perch
A golden-yellow freshwater fish marked by dark vertical bars and orange-tinged fins, native to lakes and slow-moving rivers across North America. It is one of the most abundant and widely recognized panfish species.
freshwater
Kuhli Loach
An eel-like, nocturnal loach with a banded body that burrows through substrate in streams across Southeast Asia.
freshwaterBlood Parrot Cichlid
A rounded, vivid orange-red hybrid cichlid recognized by its permanently small, beak-like mouth and stubby, rounded fins.
freshwater
Spiny Dogfish
A slender, small schooling shark with sharp spines in front of each dorsal fin and no anal fin, one of the most abundant sharks worldwide.
cartilaginous
Blue-spotted Shark
A small, slender nocturnal reef shark covered in vivid blue spots and dark saddle bands, popular in home aquariums.
reef
Bigeye Tuna
A large, deep-diving tuna named for its notably large eyes, adapted for hunting in the dim light of deep water far below the ocean surface.
pelagic
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
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
American Eel
The American Eel spends most of its life in North American rivers and estuaries before migrating once to the Sargasso Sea to spawn and die.
freshwater
Von Rio Tetra
A small, fiery-red tetra native to coastal rivers near Rio de Janeiro, notable for two dark shoulder spots and deep red hindquarters.
freshwater
Volitans Lionfish
A large, boldly banded lionfish with dramatic trailing fins, an ambush predator now invasive across the western Atlantic.
reefTotoaba
A critically endangered giant drum endemic to the Gulf of California, notable as one of the largest members of the Sciaenidae family.
saltwater