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.
Magnificent Rabbitfish
A striking white rabbitfish patterned with bold black head markings and a black-edged dorsal fin, giving it a panda-like appearance among the more brightly colored reef rabbitfishes.
reef
Napoleon Wrasse
A massive, thick-lipped coral reef wrasse with a distinctive bulging forehead hump and blue-green maze-like facial markings, among the largest reef fish in the Indo-Pacific.
reef
Longfin Trevally
A moderately deep-bodied Indo-Pacific trevally recognized by its elongated, filament-like dorsal and anal fin tips, typically found alone over sandy coastal bottoms.
reef
Marlin
A large, powerful open-ocean billfish with a long rounded spear-like bill and a tall crested back, prized as one of the ocean's fastest and most sought-after game fish.
pelagic
Humphead Wrasse
A massive, long-lived Indo-Pacific reef wrasse known for the prominent bulging hump on its forehead and its role as one of the few predators of toxic crown-of-thorns starfish.
reef
Dogtooth Tuna
A powerful reef-associated tuna of the Indo-Pacific, named for its large, dog-like teeth, often encountered patrolling steep drop-offs and current-swept reef edges.
reef
Emperor Angelfish
The Emperor Angelfish is a large, boldly striped reef fish with alternating blue and yellow horizontal lines and a dark mask across the eyes, one of the most recognizable angelfish in the Indo-Pacific.
reef
Combtail Gourami
A robust Sri Lankan gourami named for the comb-like fringe along its dorsal, anal, and tail fins, more aggressive and predatory than most smaller gourami relatives.
freshwater
Convict Blenny
An eel-like burrow-dweller whose black-and-white striped juveniles form dense swirling schools near the burrow mouth, while adults hide almost entirely underground.
reef
Coffinfish
A rotund, soft-skinned anglerfish relative that shuffles along the deep seafloor on stubby, arm-like fins and dangles a tiny lure to attract prey close to its wide mouth.
deepsea
Atlantic Hagfish
The Atlantic hagfish is a primitive, eel-like, jawless scavenger known for producing enormous quantities of defensive slime and for its ability to feed inside the carcasses of dead or dying animals on the seafloor.
deepsea
Brook Trout
A colorful char native to cold, clear streams of eastern North America, marked by worm-like back markings and red spots haloed in blue along its sides. It is highly sensitive to water quality and temperature.
freshwater
Estuarine Stonefish
A heavily camouflaged, encrusted-looking fish that lies motionless on muddy estuary and mangrove bottoms across the Indo-Pacific, bearing venomous dorsal spines as a natural defense.
brackish
Western Brook Lamprey
The western brook lamprey is a small, non-parasitic jawless fish that spends most of its life as a burrowing larva in Pacific Northwest streams before a brief, non-feeding adult stage.
freshwater
Pufferfish
A slow-swimming reef fish famous for inflating its body into a spiny ball when threatened, using a fused beak-like set of teeth to feed on hard-shelled invertebrates and algae.
reef
Lawnmower Blenny
The Lawnmower Blenny is a mottled brown-and-cream reef fish with a stocky body and comb-like teeth, known for grazing algae off rock and rubble surfaces on shallow Indo-Pacific reefs.
reef
Cornetfish
An extremely elongated, needle-thin fish with a whip-like tail filament, the Cornetfish hovers near reefs and seagrass, using its long tubular snout to snap up small fish.
reef
Common Lumpsucker
Shaped like a rounded ball with a sucker disc instead of pelvic fins, the Common Lumpsucker drifts through cold North Atlantic waters before moving inshore to spawn on rocky shores.
saltwater
Figure-Eight Puffer
A small brackish-water pufferfish named for the bold black figure-eight-shaped markings across its yellow-green back. Like other puffers, it can inflate its body with water as a defense against predators.
brackish
Allis Shad
A large anadromous herring relative native to Europe's Atlantic coast, the Allis Shad spends most of its life at sea but migrates into large rivers each spring to spawn, forming runs that have been much reduced.
brackish
Flounder
A flatfish with both eyes on its upper side that lies camouflaged against sandy or muddy bottoms, ambushing small fish and invertebrates that pass overhead.
saltwater
Striped Marlin
A swift, streamlined billfish famous for its tall, sail-like blue dorsal fin and rows of pale vertical stripes, ranging widely through the Pacific and Indian Oceans as a top offshore predator.
pelagic
Robust Ghost Pipefish
The robust ghost pipefish is the largest species in its family, with a plainer, leaf-like body that mimics drifting seagrass, algae, or sargassum rather than the frillier crinoid-mimicking patterns of its relatives.
reef
Deep-sea Hatchetfish
A small, silvery, laterally flattened deep-sea fish shaped like a hatchet blade, using rows of downward-pointing light organs to mask its silhouette from predators lurking below.
deepsea