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.
Zebra Turkeyfish
A dwarf lionfish species boldly striped in reddish-brown and white, with broad, fan-like pectoral fins used to corner small prey against reef rubble.
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
Yellow-edged Moray
One of the largest reef morays, marked with an intricate maze-like pattern and a bright yellow-edged dorsal fin, hiding by day in rocky and coral crevices.
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
Yellow Seahorse
A widespread and highly variable Indo-Pacific seahorse, commonly seen in bright yellow though also occurring in black, orange, or mottled brown, found from mangrove estuaries to coral reefs.
reef
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
Zebra Moray
The Zebra Moray is a striped Indo-Pacific reef eel with blunt, peg-like teeth specialized for crushing crabs, mollusks, and sea urchins.
reef
Volitans Lionfish
A large, boldly banded lionfish with dramatic trailing fins, an ambush predator now invasive across the western Atlantic.
reef
Whitetip Reef Shark
A slender nocturnal reef shark marked by distinctive white-tipped fins, often seen resting motionless inside reef caves and under ledges by day across the Indo-Pacific.
reefCeylon Killifish
An elongated, surface-dwelling killifish endemic to Sri Lanka, showing an orange-red body with fine dark speckling and iridescent scale flecking.
freshwater
Yellowtail Amberjack
A powerful, streamlined jack marked by a bold yellow lateral stripe and yellow tail, roaming temperate and subtropical waters worldwide around reefs, wrecks, and open water.
pelagicMiller Lake Lamprey
The Miller Lake lamprey is a tiny, non-parasitic jawless fish historically restricted to a single lake and its tributary streams in Oregon, one of the smallest lamprey species known.
freshwater
Widow Rockfish
A bronze-brown, large-eyed rockfish that forms dense midwater schools over the outer continental shelf and was once the target of one of the Pacific coast's largest groundfish fisheries.
saltwaterTiger Muskie
A hybrid of northern pike and muskellunge, this elongated apex predator sports bold dark tiger stripes and is prized as one of freshwater's most aggressive game fish.
freshwaterWhitefish
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.
freshwaterBluestripe Fangblenny
An elongated blenny with a blue-and-black striped body that mimics cleaner wrasse to approach unsuspecting fish, using enlarged fangs to nip scales, mucus, or tissue before darting away.
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.
reefViolet Goby
An eel-like burrowing goby with an iridescent violet-grey sheen and a large upturned mouth, found in muddy estuaries of the tropical Americas.
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.
freshwaterPygmy Goby
One of the smallest vertebrates on Earth, this minute translucent goby perches in crevices on Indo-Pacific coral reefs and has an extraordinarily short lifespan.
reef
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.
reefMexican Lamprey
The Mexican lamprey is a jawless fish endemic to freshwater rivers of the central Mexican highlands, one of the few lamprey species found so far south in 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.
freshwaterBlood Parrot Cichlid
A rounded, vivid orange-red hybrid cichlid recognized by its permanently small, beak-like mouth and stubby, rounded fins.
freshwater
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
Turbot
Turbot is a large, diamond-shaped left-eyed flatfish known for its rough, scaleless skin studded with bony tubercles and its camouflaged sandy coloration.
saltwater
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
Tub Gurnard
The largest common European gurnard, with a reddish armored body and enormous, brilliantly blue-green pectoral fins that it spreads when disturbed.
saltwaterZebra 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
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
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
Turquoise Killifish
A vividly colored annual killifish from southeastern Africa's temporary pools, notable for having the shortest lifespan of any known vertebrate, typically just a few months in the wild.
freshwater
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 Shovelnose Catfish
A large South American river catfish with a distinctive flattened, shovel-shaped snout and bold black stripes across a pale body.
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
Summer Flounder
The summer flounder, also called fluke, is a left-eyed flatfish common along the US Atlantic coast, prized as a popular sport fish and known for its mottled camouflage pattern.
saltwater
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
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.
deepsea
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
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
Yellowhead Jawfish
A pale, yellow-headed jawfish that hovers above a self-dug sand burrow, diving in tail-first when startled.
reef
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 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
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
Zebra Shark
A slender, docile reef shark whose striped juveniles transform into leopard-like spotted adults, unmistakable due to its very long tail.
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
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
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