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.
Barred Halfbeak
A schooling, seagrass-associated halfbeak of the Indo-Pacific with a long, red-tipped lower jaw and faint dark bars along its silvery flanks.
saltwater
African Arowana
A large African bonytongue fish with a toothless, filter-feeding mouth adapted for straining plankton and detritus from floodplain waters.
freshwater
Atlantic Pollock
A fast, schooling North Atlantic gadid with a dark streamlined body and pale lateral line, often found swimming in open water over the shelf.
pelagic
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
Sailfin Tang
A striped surgeonfish famous for its oversized, sail-like dorsal and anal fins, common on Indo-Pacific coral reefs.
reef
Pajama Cardinalfish
A small, egg-shaped reef fish with a yellow-striped head and red-spotted rear body, resembling patterned sleepwear.
reef
Raccoon Butterflyfish
A round, orange-and-white butterflyfish with a black mask-like eye band, named for its raccoon-like facial markings.
reef
Green Wrasse
A slender Mediterranean wrasse, often green to brownish, associated with seagrass meadows and rocky reefs.
saltwater
Hogfish
A large western-Atlantic wrasse with a pig-like snout and long front dorsal spines, able to rapidly change color.
reef
Goblin Shark
A rare, pink-skinned deep-sea shark with a long, blade-like snout and jaws that shoot forward to snatch prey in an instant.
deepsea
Yellow Tang
A brilliant all-yellow surgeonfish common on Pacific coral reefs, especially around Hawaii, easily recognized by its disc-shaped body and sharp tail spine.
reefWitch Flounder
A slender, tongue-shaped deep-water North Atlantic flatfish with plain grayish-brown coloration, fine scales, and a preference for cold muddy shelf and slope bottoms.
deepsea
Longnose Hawkfish
A red-and-white lattice-patterned hawkfish with an unmistakable elongated snout, perched motionlessly on gorgonian sea fans across the Indo-Pacific.
reef
Yellowtail Blue Damselfish
A small, vividly electric-blue damselfish with a sharply contrasting bright yellow tail, common on shallow reef flats and lagoons of the western Pacific.
reef
Tripod Fish
An abyssal fish that props itself above the seafloor on three elongated fin rays, forming a tripod, and waits motionless facing into the current to ambush tiny drifting prey.
deepsea
Vermilion Snapper
A slender, vivid pinkish-red snapper of deep offshore reefs and hard bottom, feeding mainly on plankton picked from the water column rather than the substrate.
reefPygmy Goby
One of the smallest vertebrates on Earth, this minute translucent goby perches in crevices on Indo-Pacific coral reefs and has an extraordinarily short lifespan.
reef
Summer Flounder
The summer flounder, also called fluke, is a left-eyed flatfish common along the US Atlantic coast, prized as a popular sport fish and known for its mottled camouflage pattern.
saltwater
Thresher Shark
An unmistakable shark with an extraordinarily long, whip-like upper tail lobe used to stun schooling prey, found roaming temperate and tropical open oceans worldwide.
cartilaginous
Topsmelt
A slender, silvery schooling fish common in bays, estuaries, and kelp beds along the eastern Pacific coast, often seen shoaling near the surface in large numbers.
saltwater
Turbot
Turbot is a large, diamond-shaped left-eyed flatfish known for its rough, scaleless skin studded with bony tubercles and its camouflaged sandy coloration.
saltwater
Tub Gurnard
The largest common European gurnard, with a reddish armored body and enormous, brilliantly blue-green pectoral fins that it spreads when disturbed.
saltwater
Southern Bluefin Tuna
A large, deep-bodied tuna of the Southern Hemisphere's open oceans, distinguished by very short pectoral fins and a single spawning ground south of Indonesia.
pelagic
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