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.
Hammerhead Shark
A shark instantly recognizable by its flattened, laterally extended hammer-shaped head, often seen in large daytime schools near seamounts and coastal areas.
cartilaginous
Frilled Shark
An eel-like, primitive deep-sea shark often called a living fossil, with six frilly gill slits and rows of needle-like teeth for catching soft-bodied prey.
deepsea
Goblin Shark
A rare, pink-skinned deep-sea shark with a long, blade-like snout and jaws that shoot forward to snatch prey in an instant.
deepsea
Dusky Shark
A large, robust requiem shark found along continental coastlines worldwide, notable for its slow growth and long-distance migrations.
saltwater
Cookiecutter Shark
A small, cigar-shaped deep-sea shark known for gouging round cookie-shaped plugs of flesh from much larger animals, including whales and other sharks.
deepsea
Bonnethead Shark
The smallest hammerhead species, easily recognized by its smooth, shovel-shaped head, common in shallow coastal waters of the Americas.
cartilaginous
Basking Shark
The world's second-largest fish, a massive gray-brown filter feeder recognized by its enormous gaping mouth and huge gill slits, often seen basking at the surface in cool temperate seas.
cartilaginous
Angel Shark
A flattened, ray-like shark that buries itself in sand to ambush passing fish, once widespread but now one of the most critically threatened sharks in Europe.
saltwater
Blacktip Reef Shark
A slender, small reef shark instantly recognized by the bold black tips on all its fins, commonly seen patrolling shallow lagoons and reef flats across the Indo-Pacific.
reef
Colombian Shark Catfish
A sleek, silver, shark-shaped catfish with a tall dorsal fin and long barbels, native to brackish river mouths along the Pacific coast of Central and South America.
brackish
Sand Tiger Shark
A bulky, fierce-looking but generally docile shark with protruding rows of needle-like teeth, commonly seen hovering near shipwrecks and reef caves along temperate and subtropical coastlines.
cartilaginous
Port Jackson Shark
A distinctive, slow-moving Australian bullhead shark with a blunt pig-like snout, bold harness-shaped markings, and blunt crushing teeth for eating shellfish.
saltwater
Oceanic Whitetip Shark
A robust open-ocean shark identified by its large, rounded, white-mottled fins, once one of the most abundant pelagic sharks but now heavily depleted across tropical open oceans worldwide.
pelagic
Great White Shark
A massive, torpedo-shaped predator found in cool coastal and offshore waters worldwide, easily recognized by its sharp countershading and crescent-shaped tail.
cartilaginous
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.
reef
Blue-spotted Shark
A small, slender nocturnal reef shark covered in vivid blue spots and dark saddle bands, popular in home aquariums.
reef
Caribbean Reef Shark
The most commonly encountered large shark on Caribbean reefs, a stocky gray requiem shark often seen resting motionless on the sea floor.
reef
Red Gurnard
A reddish-pink bottom-dweller of European seas, the Red Gurnard has an armored head and finger-like pectoral rays it uses to walk and sense prey along the seafloor.
saltwater
Red Hake
Red hake is a slender, tapering groundfish of the western North Atlantic shelf, identified by its reddish-brown color, two dorsal fins, and long thread-like pelvic fin filaments.
saltwater
Red Grouper
The red grouper is a heavy-bodied, reddish-brown reef fish common on rocky and coral bottoms of the Gulf of Mexico and western Atlantic, known for excavating shallow depressions in sediment.
reef
Red Lionfish
Instantly recognizable for its fan-like, striped fins and venomous spines, the red lionfish is a native Indo-Pacific reef predator that has become a damaging invasive species in the Western Atlantic.
reef
Red Snapper
A rosy-red snapper of the Gulf of Mexico and southeastern U.S. coast, recognized by its sloped profile, sharp triangular teeth, and bright red eyes.
reef
Red Drum
The Red Drum is a coppery-bronze coastal fish of the western Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico, best known for the dark eyespot near its tail.
brackish
Red Bream
The red bream, or blackspot seabream, is a pink-tinged sparid with a dark shoulder spot that lives over rocky and sandy bottoms in the northeastern Atlantic and Mediterranean.
saltwater