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.
Klein's Butterflyfish
A golden-brown Indo-Pacific butterflyfish with a dark eye bar and dusky patches, common on many reefs.
reef
Picasso Triggerfish
A boldly patterned triggerfish with geometric blue, yellow, and black markings, common on shallow Indo-Pacific reef flats.
reef
Yellow Longnose Butterflyfish
A bright yellow Indo-Pacific butterflyfish with a very long tweezer-like snout and a black eyespot near the tail.
reef
Ornate Butterflyfish
A showy Indo-Pacific butterflyfish with diagonal orange stripes across a white body and black-and-yellow face bands.
reef
Bird Wrasse
An Indo-Pacific wrasse instantly recognized by its long, bird-like snout used to probe coral for prey.
reef
Silverstripe Halfbeak
A slender halfbeak marked by a bright silver lateral stripe, found skimming the surface of tropical Indo-Pacific reef lagoons.
reef
Moon Wrasse
A fast-swimming green Indo-Pacific wrasse with pink-magenta facial streaks and a bright yellow crescent-moon tail.
reef
Golden Trevally
A bright golden-yellow jack, often banded as a juvenile, found around coral reefs and lagoons throughout the Indo-Pacific.
reef
Yellowtail Wrasse
A striking Indo-Pacific wrasse whose bright red spotted juveniles transform into green-blue adults with a yellow tail.
reef
Auriga Butterflyfish
A very common Indo-Pacific butterflyfish with cross-hatched white body, yellow rear, and often a trailing dorsal filament.
reef
Yellowfin Surgeonfish
One of the largest surgeonfishes, reaching 70 cm, identified by a bright yellow pectoral-fin patch and blue-ringed eyes; found in lagoons and bays across the Indo-Pacific and eastern Pacific.
reef
Spotted Croaker
A large Indo-Pacific drum with scattered dark spots along its silvery back, common in turbid estuaries and river mouths.
brackish
Naso Tang
A large surgeonfish with bright orange lips and a yellow tail-base marking, grazing algae along Indo-Pacific reef slopes.
reef
Longnose Hawkfish
A red-and-white lattice-patterned hawkfish with an unmistakable elongated snout, perched motionlessly on gorgonian sea fans across the Indo-Pacific.
reef
Bluebanded Sea Bream
An Indo-Pacific reef fish, actually a snapper, marked by diagonal electric-blue bands on yellow and trailing fin filaments in adults.
reef
Blackbarred Halfbeak
A silvery halfbeak marked with faint dark vertical bars, common over seagrass beds and reef flats across the Indo-Pacific.
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
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
Stonefish
The estuarine stonefish is a heavily camouflaged, warty bottom-dweller of Indo-Pacific mudflats and estuaries, considered one of the most venomous fish known.
brackish
Saddleback Clownfish
A dark, saddle-marked clownfish that shelters among the tentacles of large sea anemones on sandy reef slopes and lagoons across the Indo-Pacific.
reef
Bluefin Trevally
A vividly colored reef jack covered in electric-blue spots, with matching blue fins, patrolling coral reefs across the Indo-Pacific.
reef
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
Narrow-barred Spanish Mackerel
A large, fast-swimming mackerel of the Indo-Pacific marked by numerous narrow, wavy dark bars running down its silvery sides.
pelagic
Camouflage Grouper
A stocky, well-camouflaged Indo-Pacific grouper with a mottled brown-and-tan pattern of hexagonal blotches that helps it blend seamlessly into reef substrate.
reef