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.
Barbour's Seahorse
A small, spiny-crowned seahorse native to the coral reefs and seagrass beds of the western Pacific, distinguished by fine dark banding along its snout.
reef
Whale Shark
The largest fish in the world, a gentle filter-feeding shark covered in a distinctive checkerboard pattern of pale spots and stripes, found in warm seas worldwide.
cartilaginous
Silver Aba
A tail-less, eel-shaped African fish that swims by rippling a long dorsal fin and generates a weak electric field to sense its surroundings.
freshwater
Sea Hagfish
The sea hagfish is a primitive, eel-shaped jawless fish that scavenges on the deep, cold seafloor of the North Atlantic and produces enormous amounts of defensive slime.
deepsea
Reedfish
A snake-bodied African fish with a lung-like breathing organ, related to bichirs, prized for its unusual elongated form and air-breathing ability.
freshwater
Purple Spotted Gudgeon
A stocky, olive-brown Australian freshwater fish covered in scattered iridescent purple-blue spots, favoring weedy, slow-moving streams and lagoons.
freshwater
Pacific Saury
A slender, silvery, beaked schooling fish of the temperate North Pacific, closely related to needlefish, marked by a row of small finlets near its tail.
pelagic
Pacific Lamprey
The Pacific lamprey is a jawless, anadromous fish with a toothed sucking disc mouth, found along Pacific coastlines from Baja California to Japan and Alaska.
saltwater
Mekong Giant Catfish
One of the largest freshwater fish on Earth, this critically endangered giant inhabits the deep main channel of the Mekong River and undertakes long spawning migrations.
freshwater
Loach Goby
The Loach Goby is an elongated, flat-bodied fish that clings to rocks in fast-flowing Indo-Pacific streams, combining goby and loach-like features.
freshwater
Indo-Pacific Sailfish
The Indo-Pacific sailfish is a large, streamlined billfish famed for its towering, sail-like dorsal fin and status as one of the fastest fish in the ocean.
pelagic
Garfish
A long, silvery, needle-jawed fish of European coastal waters, instantly recognizable by its bright green backbone and slender, beak-like snout.
pelagic
Frigate Mackerel
A small tuna-like fish with a distinctive dark, wavy tiger-stripe pattern on its upper back, found in warm oceanic waters worldwide.
pelagic
Flagtail Prochilodus
The Flagtail Prochilodus is a schooling South American river fish named for its bold red-and-black striped tail fin, which resembles a flag.
freshwater
Dwarf Gourami
A small, colorful labyrinth fish from South Asia, with males displaying vivid diagonal red and blue stripes, popular in the freshwater aquarium trade.
freshwater
Dwarf Livebearer
One of the smallest fish species in the world, this tiny freshwater livebearer from the southeastern United States is prized for its miniature size and easy breeding.
freshwater
California Grunion
A slender coastal fish famous for coming fully ashore on sandy California beaches during nighttime spawning runs timed to spring high tides.
saltwater
American Paddlefish
The American paddlefish is a primitive filter-feeding fish famous for its long, paddle-shaped snout, native to the Mississippi River basin of North America.
freshwater
Zebrafish
A small, striped South Asian minnow renowned worldwide as a key model organism for genetics and developmental biology research, alongside its popularity as an aquarium fish.
freshwater
Spot Croaker
Spot is a small, deep-bodied estuarine fish easily identified by a single dark shoulder spot and faint oblique bars along its upper body.
brackish
River Lamprey
The river lamprey, also known as the lampern, is a small anadromous European lamprey that feeds parasitically on fish in coastal and estuarine waters before migrating into rivers to spawn.
brackish
Pacific Halibut
The Pacific halibut is a massive right-eyed flatfish of the cold North Pacific, closely related to the Atlantic halibut and among the largest bony fish in its range.
saltwater
Mono Argentus
A flat, disc-shaped, mirror-silver fish with tall yellow-tinged fins, commonly seen schooling in brackish estuaries and harbors across the Indo-Pacific.
brackish
Marbled Hatchetfish
A tiny South American fish with a deep, keeled belly and enlarged pectoral fins that let it skim and glide just above the water surface to escape predators.
freshwater