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.
Flame Hawkfish
A brilliant red-orange reef fish that perches motionless atop branching coral, darting out to ambush small prey.
reef
Ballan Wrasse
The largest wrasse in northern European waters, a stout rocky-reef fish with highly variable green, brown, or reddish mottling.
saltwater
Cleaner Wrasse
The Cleaner Wrasse is a slender fish with a bold black horizontal stripe and blue body, famous for removing parasites and dead tissue from other reef fish at dedicated cleaning stations.
reef
High-hat
A striking black-and-white striped reef drum related to the jackknife-fish, easily recognized by its tall, elongated dorsal fin.
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
Royal Gramma
The Royal Gramma is a small Caribbean reef fish with a sharp two-tone body: violet-purple in front, golden yellow behind. It shelters upside down in caves and crevices along steep reef walls.
reef
Pajama Cardinalfish
A small, egg-shaped reef fish with a yellow-striped head and red-spotted rear body, resembling patterned sleepwear.
reef
Moorish Idol
An unmistakable disc-shaped reef fish with bold black-white-yellow bands and a dramatically long trailing dorsal fin.
reef
Bluehead Wrasse
A small, abundant Caribbean reef fish famous for changing color and sex as it matures, with terminal males developing a striking blue head and green body. It is one of the most numerous fish on western Atlantic reefs.
reef
White Grunt
A stout, silvery reef fish with a bright orange-red mouth lining, known for the grinding sound it makes with its pharyngeal teeth.
reef
Blue Tang
A vivid royal-blue reef fish with a black palette-shaped marking and a bright yellow tail, popularized worldwide after appearing in animated film.
reef
Snowflake Moray
The Snowflake Moray is a mottled black-and-yellow reef eel with blunt, crushing teeth adapted for feeding on crabs and shrimp rather than fish.
reef
Permit
A deep-bodied, silvery flats and reef fish of the western Atlantic, famed among anglers for its wary nature and sickle-shaped fins.
reef
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
Giant Moray
The Giant Moray is the largest moray eel species, a densely spotted Indo-Pacific reef predator that shelters in crevices by day and hunts fish and invertebrates at night.
reef
Firefish Goby
A slender white-and-orange reef fish with a tall, flag-like first dorsal fin, often seen hovering near its burrow on sandy slopes.
reef
Sixline Soapfish
A dark brown-black Indo-Pacific reef fish marked with six pale horizontal stripes, known for secreting a bitter, toxic skin mucus as a defense mechanism.
reef
Hardyhead Silverside
A robust, silvery schooling fish common in shallow lagoons and reef flats across the Indo-Pacific, identified by its broad head and prominent silver midline stripe.
saltwater
Snapper
A robust, reef-dwelling fish with a reddish-pink body and striking red eyes, common over rocky bottoms, reefs, and wrecks throughout the Gulf of Mexico and western Atlantic.
reef
Queen Triggerfish
The Queen Triggerfish is a strikingly colorful Atlantic reef fish, marked by blue facial lines, a yellow-tinged tail, and elongated dorsal and tail fin filaments.
reef
Sweetlips
Sweetlips is the common name for boldly striped reef fish of the genus Plectorhinchus, exemplified by the Oriental sweetlips, known for thick fleshy lips and dramatic juvenile-to-adult color change.
reef
Queen Angelfish
The Queen Angelfish is a large, vividly colored Caribbean reef fish with a blue-green body, yellow-rimmed scales, and a distinctive blue-ringed crown spot on its forehead.
reef
Boxfish
A rigid, box-shaped Indo-Pacific reef fish encased in fused bony plates; juveniles are bright yellow with black spots, dulling to olive-grey tones as adults.
reef
Bicolor Damselfish
A small reef fish sharply split into a dark front half and a pale rear half, common on Caribbean and western Atlantic coral reefs where it defends algae-covered territories.
reef