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.
Ballyhoo
A slender, silvery halfbeak of coastal Atlantic waters, easily recognized by its long lower jaw tipped in red-orange, often seen skittering across the surface in schools.
saltwater
Ocean Sunfish
The ocean sunfish is the heaviest bony fish alive, a flattened giant with no true tail that drifts through temperate and tropical seas feeding on jellyfish.
pelagic
Florida Pompano
A deep-bodied, silvery fish with a forked tail and yellow-tinged fins, common in sandy surf zones along the western Atlantic coast.
saltwater
Fingerprint Filefish
The Fingerprint Filefish is a small reef filefish with a dark head, orange-brown body marked by fine irregular lines, and a bright orange tail.
reef
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
Allen's Damselfish
A slender, iridescent blue damselfish with a bright yellow tail, native to reefs of the Coral Triangle and known for its striking two-tone coloration.
reef
Tomtate
A small silvery grunt common over reefs and hard-bottom habitats of the western Atlantic, recognized by a dark blotch near the base of its tail fin.
reef
Stoplight Parrotfish
A common Caribbean reef fish whose terminal-phase males show brilliant green bodies with a distinctive yellow spot at the tail base resembling a stoplight.
reef
Oscar
A large, intelligent South American cichlid known for its bold personality, striking mottled coloration, and a dark false eyespot near the base of its tail.
freshwater
Bullhead Catfish
A hardy, whiskered bottom-dweller with a rounded tail and mottled brown skin, thriving in muddy, low-oxygen ponds and slow streams across North America.
freshwater
Blue Devil Damselfish
A small, intensely electric-blue damselfish common on shallow Indo-Pacific reef flats, with males developing an orange-tinted tail during breeding season.
reef
Atlantic Saury
A slender, silvery, beaked fish of the open North Atlantic, closely related to needlefish, recognized by its elongated jaws and a row of small finlets near the tail.
pelagic
X-ray Tetra
A translucent coastal South American characin whose see-through body and bold black-white-yellow fin markings make it instantly recognizable.
brackish
Snook
A sleek, silvery predator with a bold black lateral stripe and a distinctive sloped, pointed snout, closely tied to mangrove shorelines and warm coastal estuaries.
brackish
Panther Grouper
An unmistakable Indo-Pacific grouper with a pale gray body covered in round black spots, a small head, and a distinctive humped, sloping forehead profile.
reef
Percula Clownfish
A bright orange anemonefish with three bold white bars outlined in black, famous for its symbiotic partnership with sea anemones on western Pacific reefs.
reef
Lemon Tetra
A pale yellow tetra from the Amazon basin, easily recognized by its lemon-tinted body and black-edged anal fin bordered in yellow.
freshwater
Guineafowl Pufferfish
The Guineafowl Pufferfish is a variably colored reef puffer, most often dark brown to black with small white spots, resembling the plumage of a guineafowl bird.
reef
Haddock
A slender, silvery-grey relative of the cod, easily recognized by a distinctive black lateral line and a dark thumbprint-like blotch above the pectoral fin.
saltwater
China Rockfish
Easily recognized by a bold yellow stripe running down its black body, the China rockfish is a small, secretive reef dweller of the northeastern Pacific.
saltwater
Three-Spot Domino Damselfish
A round, jet-black damselfish marked with three white spots, commonly seen sheltering among sea anemones and branching corals on Indo-Pacific reefs.
reef
Jaguar Cichlid
A large, powerfully built Central American predator whose irregular black leopard-like blotches over a pale body give it its common name.
freshwaterBeluga Sturgeon
One of the largest anadromous fish in the world, native to the Caspian and Black Sea basins. It migrates into major rivers like the Volga and Danube to spawn and is critically endangered.
brackish
Barramundi Cod
The Australian common name for the panther grouper, a pale gray, black-spotted reef grouper instantly recognizable by its small head and steeply humped forehead.
reef