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.
Yellowbelly Damselfish
A small blue-grey damselfish with a bright yellow underside, found sheltering around coral and rubble on shallow reefs of the western Pacific.
reef
Rosy Rockfish
A small, brightly colored rockfish with rose-pink coloring and dark saddle blotches, found on rocky reefs along the California coast.
saltwater
Star Drum
One of the smallest drums in the western Atlantic, an elongated silvery fish often found in dense schools over soft coastal bottoms.
saltwater
Seahorse
An unmistakable upright-swimming fish with a horse-like head and curled prehensile tail, notable for males carrying and giving birth to offspring.
reef
Lumpsucker
A rounded, ball-shaped North Atlantic fish with rough tuberculate skin and a ventral sucker disc used to cling to rocks and kelp.
saltwater
King Mackerel
A large, streamlined mackerel of the warm western Atlantic, prized as a fast offshore game fish and recognizable by its silvery, unmarked body.
pelagic
Cobia
A large, elongated, shark-like fish that roams warm coastal waters worldwide and often follows rays, turtles, and floating structure.
pelagic
South American Lungfish
An eel-shaped South American fish that breathes almost entirely through a single lung, allowing it to survive dry seasons buried in mud.
freshwater
Pallid Sturgeon
The pallid sturgeon is a large, pale, endangered fish of the Missouri and Mississippi rivers, adapted to fast, turbid water with a flattened snout and reduced eyes.
freshwater
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
Goldfish
A hardy freshwater fish domesticated from the wild Prussian carp, prized worldwide as an ornamental pond and aquarium species in many color forms.
freshwater
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
Caspian Lamprey
The Caspian lamprey is a parasitic, jawless fish that lives in the brackish Caspian Sea and migrates into tributary rivers of Russia, Iran, and neighboring countries to spawn.
brackish
Common Roach
A widespread European freshwater fish with a silvery body and distinctive red-orange fins, forming large shoals in slow rivers, lakes, and canals.
freshwater
Atlantic Sturgeon
The Atlantic sturgeon is a large, armored anadromous fish of eastern North America, spending years at sea before returning to coastal rivers to spawn.
brackish
Black Skirt Tetra
A silvery-gray tetra with a flowing black skirt-like tail and fins, whose dark coloration typically fades somewhat as the fish matures.
freshwater
Black Marlin
A massive, powerful billfish of the Indo-Pacific known for its rigid, immovable pectoral fins and status as one of the largest bony fish in the ocean.
pelagic
Threespot Dascyllus
A robust black-bodied damselfish bearing three white spots in youth, one of the most widespread dascyllus species on Indo-Pacific reefs.
reef
Chalk Bass
A tiny bicolored sea bass with a lavender-blue head and orange rear body, often seen darting over Caribbean rubble reefs.
reef
Conger Eel
The Conger Eel is the largest eel in European waters, a strictly marine species inhabiting rocky reefs and wrecks across the northeastern Atlantic and Mediterranean.
saltwater
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
Silver Bream
A silvery European freshwater fish with notably large, protruding eyes, often confused with young Common Bream but distinguished by its larger scales.
freshwater
Shanny
The most common rockpool blenny of the northeastern Atlantic, the Shanny is a stout, big-eyed fish that tolerates the harsh, fluctuating conditions of the intertidal zone.
saltwater
Sawfish
A critically endangered ray with a long, tooth-lined snout resembling a saw, used to detect and strike schooling fish in shallow tropical waters.
cartilaginous