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.
Barreleye
The barreleye, or spookfish, is a deep-sea fish with a transparent, dome-shaped head revealing barrel-shaped, upward-rotating tubular eyes, unlike any other fish.
deepsea
Longnose Butterflyfish
A bright yellow butterflyfish with a greatly elongated snout used to pluck small invertebrates from reef crevices. It is one of the most widespread and recognizable butterflyfish across the Indo-Pacific.
reef
Flowery Flounder
An Indo-Pacific reef-associated flatfish densely covered in small blue rings and spots, giving a flower-like pattern, with both eyes on its upper left side.
reef
Graysby
The graysby is a small, reddish-brown reef grouper of the tropical western Atlantic, densely covered in pale spots and marked with a few larger dark blotches along its back.
reef
Dragon Wrasse
A reef wrasse whose juveniles mimic drifting algae with wild fin extensions, while adults become stout, green-bodied rock-flippers that hunt buried invertebrates.
reefAtlantic Herring
A slender, silvery schooling fish that forms some of the largest shoals in the North Atlantic, feeding on plankton and serving as a key forage species for larger fish, seabirds, and marine mammals.
pelagic
Alaska Pollock
An abundant, silvery schooling fish of the cold North Pacific and Bering Sea, closely related to Atlantic Cod and among the most numerous commercially significant fish in the world.
saltwater
Tiger Rockfish
A brightly patterned rockfish with bold dark vertical bars across a pink to reddish body, resembling its namesake big cat and typically found in deeper rocky reef crevices.
saltwater
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
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
Cubera Snapper
The largest snapper in the Atlantic, a heavy-bodied reef predator with oversized canine teeth. Adults hold near deep ledges and wrecks, while juveniles grow up in mangrove nurseries.
reef
Coney
The coney is a small, color-variable reef grouper of the tropical western Atlantic, occurring in reddish-brown, bicolor, or bright golden-yellow forms, always marked with fine blue spotting.
reef
Klein's Butterflyfish
A golden-brown Indo-Pacific butterflyfish with a dark eye bar and dusky patches, common on many reefs.
reef
Longnose Gar
A slender, torpedo-shaped freshwater fish with an extremely long, narrow, tooth-lined snout, easily recognized among North American fish by its needle-like jaws.
freshwater
Fangtooth
The fangtooth is a small, deep-sea fish with the largest teeth relative to body size of any fish, identified by its oversized fangs, armored head, and compact dark body.
deepseaCusk Eel
An elongated, eel-shaped deep-sea fish whose family holds the record for the deepest fish ever documented, recovered from a trench nearly 8,400 meters down.
deepsea
Unicornfish
A large gray-brown surgeonfish named for the forward-pointing bony horn projecting from its forehead, an important herbivore grazing tough brown algae on Indo-Pacific reef flats.
reef
Longfin African Conger
A slender, sand-dwelling conger with a distinctly long dorsal fin and a two-tone body, found burrowing along reef flats and lagoons across the Indo-Pacific and East African coast.
reef
Green Moray Eel
The Green Moray Eel is a large Atlantic reef eel whose apparent green color actually comes from a yellow mucus layer coating its naturally blue-grey skin.
reef
Dwarf Lionfish
A compact, mottled lionfish with broad fan-like fins and venomous spines, ambushing prey on Indo-Pacific reefs.
reefSnailfish
A tadpole-shaped, scaleless fish family found from shallow tide pools to the deepest ocean trenches; hadal-zone species hold the record for the deepest fish ever observed.
deepsea
Peruvian Anchoveta
A small, slender schooling fish found in colossal numbers within the nutrient-rich Humboldt Current off Peru and Chile, considered one of the most abundant fish species on Earth.
pelagic
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
Nassau Grouper
A stocky Caribbean reef grouper known for its ability to rapidly change color and pattern, from pale to dark barred phases, and for forming large seasonal spawning aggregations now heavily protected.
reef