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.
Whitefish
Lake whitefish are silvery, streamlined members of the salmon family that inhabit cold, deep lakes across North America, feeding along the bottom for insect larvae and small invertebrates.
freshwater
White's Seahorse
White's seahorse is an endangered species endemic to the temperate estuaries of eastern Australia, best known for colonizing artificial structures like marina pylons and 'seahorse hotels' installed for conservation.
reef
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.
reefWhite Weakfish
A slender, pale silvery-white weakfish common in estuaries and coastal lagoons along the South American Atlantic coast.
brackish
Zebra Loach
A small, boldly striped South Indian loach with fine dark vertical bands, popular in aquariums for its compact size and peaceful, social behavior.
freshwater
Weather Loach
An elongated, eel-shaped East Asian loach known for becoming unusually active before storms, a behavior tied to its sensitivity to changes in barometric pressure.
freshwater
Whitespotted Moray
A brown moray eel densely covered in small, evenly spaced white spots, commonly seen with its head poking from crevices on shallow Indo-Pacific coral reefs.
reefWhite Marlin
A slender, fast-swimming billfish of the tropical and temperate Atlantic, known for its rounded fins and vivid blue-white coloration.
pelagic
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.
freshwaterTwo-spot Red Snapper
The two-spot red snapper, or bohar snapper, is a large, deep red Indo-Pacific reef predator, sometimes showing two pale saddle spots on the back, and an important predator on coral reef slopes.
reef
Yellowtail Rockfish
A slender, olive-brown Pacific rockfish with yellow-tinted fins that schools in large midwater aggregations over rocky reefs and open water along the North American coast.
saltwater
Stoplight Loosejaw
A deep-sea dragonfish with a hinge-less lower jaw and a rare ability to emit and see red bioluminescent light, invisible to most other deep-sea animals, effectively a private searchlight.
deepsea
Zebra Pleco
A small, strikingly patterned armored catfish endemic to the Rio Xingu in Brazil, prized in the aquarium trade for its bold black-and-white stripes but critically endangered by dam construction.
freshwater
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.
deepseaZebra Seahorse
A small, boldly striped seahorse endemic to northern Australian waters, patterned with fine dark bands that give it a distinctly zebra-like appearance.
reef
Tompot Blenny
A large, bold blenny with elaborate branched eye tentacles, common on rocky reefs and harbor walls around the British Isles and Mediterranean.
saltwater
Wrestling Halfbeak
Named for the ritualized jaw-locking contests between rival males, the wrestling halfbeak is a slender surface-dwelling fish from Southeast Asian creeks and mangrove-fringed brackish waters.
brackish
Twinspot Wrasse
A large Indo-Pacific wrasse; juveniles are white with two red-and-black spots, while old males become bulky and greenish with a forehead hump.
reef
Yellow Boxfish
The Yellow Boxfish is a cube-shaped reef fish, bright yellow with black spots as a juvenile, that swims with slow, hovering movements thanks to its rigid armored body.
reef
Tiger Barb
A small, deep-bodied freshwater fish marked with four bold black vertical bars across a golden-orange body, often seen darting energetically in tight schools.
freshwater
Windowpane Flounder
An almost circular, paper-thin Atlantic coast flatfish so translucent that light passes through its body, with light brown mottled coloring and widely spaced eyes.
saltwater
Stoplight Parrotfish
A common Caribbean reef fish whose terminal-phase males show brilliant green bodies with a distinctive yellow spot at the tail base resembling a stoplight.
reef
Yellow Jack
A reef-associated western Atlantic jack easily recognized by the bright yellow wash on its fins and tail, often seen patrolling reef edges in small schools.
reef
Stingray
A flat, diamond-shaped cartilaginous fish that spends much of its time partly buried in sand on shallow tropical seafloors, related to sharks and equipped with a long, whip-like venomous-spined tail.
cartilaginous
Wolf Eel
The Wolf Eel is a large, spotted, eel-shaped fish of North Pacific rocky reefs that forms long-term pairs and cooperatively guards its eggs in a shared den.
saltwater
Sterlet
The sterlet is the smallest widespread sturgeon species, a slender freshwater fish of Ponto-Caspian rivers known for its long, thin, upturned snout with fringed barbels.
freshwater
Yellowhead Jawfish
A pale, yellow-headed jawfish that hovers above a self-dug sand burrow, diving in tail-first when startled.
reef
White Hake
White hake is a large, elongated cod relative of the western North Atlantic shelf and slope, larger and grayer than red hake, with long pelvic fin filaments.
saltwater
Yellow Watchman Goby
A bright yellow burrowing goby that forms a cooperative partnership with pistol shrimp, sharing a burrow while acting as lookout for the nearly blind shrimp.
reef
Upside-down Catfish
A small Central African catfish famous for habitually swimming belly-up, an unusual behavior reflected in its reversed body coloration.
freshwater
Zebra Shark
A slender, docile reef shark whose striped juveniles transform into leopard-like spotted adults, unmistakable due to its very long tail.
reef
Vermiculated Angelfish
A small pygmy-group angelfish with a bold yellow head, blue-black body etched with fine wavy vermiculated blue lines, commonly seen darting around coral rubble on Indo-Pacific reefs.
reef
Yoyo Loach
A patterned South Asian loach whose silvery body is marked with dark lines that form Y- and X-shaped patterns, giving rise to its common name.
freshwater
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.
reef
Walleye Pollock
Walleye pollock is an abundant, schooling cod relative of the North Pacific, identified by its slender silvery body, speckled back, protruding lower jaw, and forked tail.
pelagic
Two-Banded Clownfish
An orange anemonefish with two broad white bars, the characteristic clownfish of the Red Sea and adjacent Gulf of Aden reefs, always found sheltering among host anemones.
reef
Warsaw Grouper
A massive, deep-dwelling western Atlantic grouper with a dark brownish-red body, oversized head, and a second dorsal spine noticeably longer than the others.
deepsea
Targetfish
A silvery, deep-bodied fish marked with three or four bold, curving dark stripes running from head to tail, common in brackish estuaries across the Indo-Pacific.
brackish
Unicornfish
A large gray-brown surgeonfish named for the forward-pointing bony horn projecting from its forehead, an important herbivore grazing tough brown algae on Indo-Pacific reef flats.
reef
Telescopefish
A slender deep-sea fish named for its forward-directed, tubular telescoping eyes, which provide sharp binocular vision to detect faint prey silhouettes in near-total darkness.
deepsea
Watchman Goby
The Watchman Goby is a bright yellow burrow-dwelling fish that forms a cooperative partnership with a pistol shrimp, hovering guard duty at the burrow entrance while the shrimp maintains the tunnel.
reef
Tiger Grouper
The tiger grouper is a slender reef grouper of the tropical western Atlantic marked with diagonal dark bars on a pale to reddish-brown body, resembling tiger-like striping.
reef
Walleye
A slender, golden-olive freshwater predator named for its large, glassy, light-reflective eyes that give it excellent low-light vision for hunting at dusk and in murky water.
freshwater
Tiger Shark
A large, robust shark named for the dark vertical bars on its flanks, most vivid in juveniles, known for an unusually broad, opportunistic diet.
cartilaginous
White Cloud Mountain Minnow
A hardy, cold-tolerant minnow with a metallic green-gold stripe and red-tinted fins, native to cool mountain streams in southern China.
freshwater
Tidepool Sculpin
A tiny, well-camouflaged sculpin that spends its life in rocky intertidal tidepools along the Pacific coast, able to survive being stranded above water at low tide.
saltwater
Venustus Cichlid
Nicknamed the giraffe cichlid for its blotched, leopard-like pattern, this Lake Malawi predator is known for a striking hunting trick: lying motionless on its side to lure in unsuspecting prey.
freshwater
Volitans Lionfish
A large, boldly banded lionfish with dramatic trailing fins, an ambush predator now invasive across the western Atlantic.
reef