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.
Thick-lipped Gourami
A small, hardy Myanmar labyrinth fish closely related to the Dwarf Gourami, distinguished by its noticeably thickened lips and reddish-blue diagonal banding in breeding males.
freshwaterCombtooth Blenny
A general term for the large blenny family Blenniidae, small scaleless fish named for the comb-like row of fine teeth many species use to graze algae.
saltwater
Tarpon
A giant, silver-scaled fish known as the 'Silver King,' famous for its acrobatic leaps and its ability to gulp air at the surface in low-oxygen coastal waters.
brackish
Rohu
A large South Asian river carp with a streamlined, silvery-grey body, widely farmed across the Indian subcontinent as a major aquaculture species and prized angling fish.
freshwater
Longnose Chimaera
A deep-water cartilaginous fish related to sharks, marked by an unmistakably long pointed snout and a slender tapering body cruising continental slopes far below sunlight.
cartilaginous
Northern Sea Robin
A bottom-dwelling western Atlantic fish with an armored head and huge wing-like pectoral fins, using leg-like fin rays to walk across the seafloor.
saltwater
Houndfish
A large, elongated needlefish with a crocodile-like beak of sharp teeth, found cruising just below the surface of warm coastal waters worldwide in search of small fish.
saltwater
Fathead Minnow
A small, hardy North American minnow famous as baitfish and a standard toxicology test species, able to survive low-oxygen, turbid water most fish avoid.
freshwater
Ctenopoma (African Bushfish)
A stealthy, mottled labyrinth fish from West and Central Africa that ambushes small prey from cover and can gulp air to survive in oxygen-poor swamps.
freshwater
European Pilchard (Sardine)
A small, silvery schooling fish found along the eastern Atlantic coast and throughout the Mediterranean, forming vast shoals that graze on plankton near the surface of coastal waters.
pelagicDragonfish
Dragonfish are elongated, predatory deep-sea fish with needle-sharp teeth and a long luminous chin barbel used to lure prey in the permanently dark mesopelagic zone.
deepsea
Chinese Sturgeon
The Chinese sturgeon is a critically endangered anadromous fish that spends its adult life in coastal Chinese seas before migrating far up the Yangtze River to spawn.
brackish
Atlantic Mackerel
A fast-swimming schooling fish with iridescent blue-green wavy stripes across its back, found in cold and temperate waters on both sides of the North Atlantic.
pelagic
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
Tuna
A fast, powerfully built open-ocean fish capable of high-speed sustained swimming, ranging across warm and temperate seas worldwide in large migratory schools.
pelagic
Sixline Soapfish
A dark brown-black Indo-Pacific reef fish marked with six pale horizontal stripes, known for secreting a bitter, toxic skin mucus as a defense mechanism.
reefShort-headed Lamprey
The short-headed lamprey is an anadromous, jawless fish of southeastern Australia and Tasmania, recognized by its notably short head and a marine parasitic phase before spawning in rivers.
brackish
Russian Sturgeon
The Russian sturgeon is a large, critically endangered anadromous fish of the Caspian, Black, and Azov Sea basins, known for its short blunt snout and robust armored body.
brackish
Reef Stonefish
The reef stonefish is the classic, rock-mimicking stonefish of coral reef flats, considered one of the most venomous fish in the sea and virtually invisible against reef rubble.
reef
Scaled Sardine
A small, deep-bodied silvery fish that forms dense inshore schools along the Western Atlantic coast, easily confused with other small herring-like species.
saltwater
Piranha
A deep-bodied South American river fish famed for its sharp interlocking teeth and coordinated group feeding behavior, though most species are opportunistic scavengers.
freshwater
Gulf Menhaden
A deep-bodied, oily-scaled herring relative that forms enormous schools in Gulf of Mexico estuaries, playing a major role as a forage fish in coastal food webs.
brackish
Hake
A slender, silvery predatory fish with a large toothy mouth and two widely separated dorsal fins, Hake patrol continental shelf waters of the northeastern Atlantic and Mediterranean.
saltwater
Goliath Grouper
One of the largest bony fish on Atlantic reefs, the goliath grouper is a massive, mottled brown ambush predator that shelters around wrecks, caves, and mangrove-lined shorelines.
reef