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.
Roosterfish
An unmistakable eastern Pacific game fish named for the tall comb-like spines of its dorsal fin, which it raises above the water while hunting.
saltwater
Pacific Mackerel
A schooling pelagic fish of the eastern Pacific with an iridescent blue-green back marked by irregular dark bars and scattered spots along its lower flanks.
pelagic
Lumpfish
Also called the lumpsucker, the Lumpfish is a rounded, scaleless North Atlantic fish that anchors to rocks with a sucker disc, and whose males guard the eggs after spawning.
saltwaterHerring
One of the world's most abundant fish, the herring forms colossal schools in cold North Atlantic waters and underpins much of the region's marine food web.
pelagic
European Eel
The European Eel is a catadromous fish found across European rivers and lakes, now critically endangered after a population collapse exceeding 90% since the 1980s.
freshwater
Bluefin Tuna
One of the largest and fastest bony fish in the ocean, the Bluefin Tuna is a warm-blooded, torpedo-shaped predator capable of long transoceanic migrations across the Atlantic.
pelagic
Boeseman's Rainbowfish
Boeseman's Rainbowfish is a vividly two-toned freshwater fish from New Guinea, with a blue-violet front half and a fiery orange-yellow rear half.
freshwater
Black Neon Tetra
A small Brazilian tetra marked by a bold black horizontal stripe paired with a shimmering silvery-white line above it, a popular schooling fish in freshwater aquariums.
freshwater
Banggai Cardinalfish
The Banggai Cardinalfish is a striking silver-and-black fish with long trailing fins and bold white spots, native to a tiny area of Indonesia and listed as Endangered in the wild.
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
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.
brackishCombtooth 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
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.
freshwater
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
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
Ornate Bichir
A striking Central African freshwater fish with an eel-like body covered in an intricate leopard-spot network pattern and a row of spiny finlets along its back.
freshwater
Least Brook Lamprey
The least brook lamprey is one of the smallest lamprey species in North America, a non-parasitic freshwater fish found in small streams of the central and southeastern United States.
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
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
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
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
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