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.
Antarctic Cod
Antarctic cod is a bottom-dwelling notothenioid fish of the Southern Ocean, adapted to near-freezing water and recognized by its mottled brown, camouflaged body and broad head.
saltwaterPacific Bluefin Tuna
A massive, warm-bodied tuna capable of ocean-basin migrations across the entire North Pacific, recognized by its deep, torpedo-shaped body and short pectoral fins.
pelagic
Bull Shark
A stocky, grey shark famous for its extreme tolerance of fresh and brackish water, allowing it to travel far up rivers and live in freshwater lakes far from the ocean.
cartilaginous
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
Atlantic Bluefin Tuna
A massive, torpedo-shaped, deep blue-backed tuna built for speed and long-distance migration across the Atlantic Ocean and Mediterranean Sea.
pelagicSnailfish
A tadpole-shaped, scaleless fish family found from shallow tide pools to the deepest ocean trenches; hadal-zone species hold the record for the deepest fish ever observed.
deepseaJack Mackerel
A slender, schooling temperate-water jack found off southern Australia and New Zealand, identifiable by its bony lateral scutes and vital role as forage for larger ocean predators.
pelagic
Wahoo
One of the fastest fish in the ocean, the Wahoo is a slender, torpedo-shaped predator with iridescent blue-green tiger stripes, found in warm seas worldwide.
pelagicFourwing Flyingfish
A true "four-winged" flyingfish with both enlarged pectoral and pelvic fins, allowing exceptionally long surface glides across the tropical Atlantic Ocean.
pelagic
Mandarinfish
A tiny, vividly patterned reef fish covered in a maze-like network of blue, orange, and green, prized as one of the most colorful fish in the ocean.
reef
Coho Salmon
A mid-sized Pacific salmon known as silver salmon for its bright, metallic ocean coloration, popular among anglers for its aggressive strikes.
freshwater
Anglerfish
A bizarre deep-sea predator that lures prey with a bioluminescent lure atop its head, adapted to life in total darkness at crushing ocean depths.
deepsea
Football Fish
A round, warty deep-sea anglerfish whose much larger females dangle a bioluminescent lure from a spine above the mouth to draw prey through the permanent darkness of the deep ocean.
deepsea
Alewife
A small, silvery anadromous herring native to the Atlantic coast of North America, recognizable by a single dark shoulder spot, that migrates from the ocean into freshwater rivers and lakes each spring to spawn.
brackish
Swordfish
A large, powerful open-ocean predator identified by its long, flat sword-like bill, capable of deep dives and high-speed pursuit of prey.
pelagic
Steelhead
The anadromous, sea-run form of rainbow trout, prized by anglers for its powerful runs and acrobatic leaps after migrating between rivers and the Pacific Ocean.
freshwater
Silky Shark
A slender, deep-water pelagic shark with smooth, silky-textured skin, among the most abundant sharks found around tropical open-ocean waters.
pelagic
Pacific Hagfish
The Pacific hagfish is a jawless, eel-shaped deep-sea scavenger of the eastern Pacific known for releasing thick defensive slime and for feeding on carcasses on the ocean floor.
deepsea
Bigeye Tuna
A large, deep-diving tuna named for its notably large eyes, adapted for hunting in the dim light of deep water far below the ocean surface.
pelagicPacific Sardine
A silvery, spot-flanked schooling fish found along the Pacific coast of North America, famous for boom-and-bust population cycles driven by shifting ocean temperatures and historically massive coastal schools.
pelagic
Blackwing Flyingfish
A stocky, wide-ranging flyingfish named for its large dusky-black pectoral wings, found gliding above open ocean surface waters across much of the world's warm and temperate seas.
pelagic
Sebae Clownfish
A dark brown clownfish with a bold yellow tail and two white body bars, native to reefs of the northern Indian Ocean and closely tied to the sebae sea anemone.
reefRibbon Halfbeak
An extraordinarily thin, ribbon-shaped halfbeak of the open ocean, with a long needle-like lower jaw and greatly elongated fins that let it skitter and glide across the surface.
pelagic
Yellowfin Tuna
A sleek, fast-swimming tuna named for its long, bright yellow dorsal and anal fins, found in tropical and subtropical oceans worldwide.
pelagic