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.
Honey Gourami
A small, peaceful South Asian labyrinth fish whose breeding males flush a warm honey-gold to orange color with a dark throat and belly, making it a popular gentle community fish.
freshwater
Gardner's Killifish
A small, brilliantly colored non-annual killifish from West African forest streams, with males showing an iridescent steel-blue body dotted with red spots and a lyre-shaped tail.
freshwater
Foxface Rabbitfish
The Foxface Rabbitfish has a bright yellow body, a distinctive black-and-white striped face, and venomous dorsal spines, and is often seen grazing algae on reef flats in pairs.
reef
Cutthroat Trout
A native western North American trout named for the distinctive red-orange slash marks under its jaw, found in an array of subspecies across cold streams and mountain lakes.
freshwater
Emperor Cichlid
The largest cichlid species in the world, the emperor cichlid grows to nearly a meter long in the deep waters of Lake Tanganyika and is notable for spawning only once before dying shortly after.
freshwater
Emperor Killifish
Emperor Killifish is an alternate name for the Blue Gularis, one of the largest and most dramatically finned West African killifish, with males sporting an elongated lyre-shaped tail.
freshwater
Black Jack
The Black Jack is a large, uniformly dark trevally that forms big schools around offshore tropical reefs and current-swept drop-offs across the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic Oceans.
reef
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
Common Sole
The common sole is a slender, right-eyed flatfish of European coastal waters, recognizable by its elongated oval body and small, curved mouth adapted for nighttime foraging.
saltwater
Climbing Perch
A hardy Southeast Asian labyrinth fish famous for its ability to breathe air and wriggle overland between water bodies using its spiny gill covers and pectoral fins.
freshwater
Chub
A robust, thick-shouldered cyprinid of European rivers, the chub is a wary predator-scavenger that lurks under banks and cover, feeding on anything from insects to small fish.
freshwater
Chain Pickerel
A slender, elongated ambush predator with a distinctive dark chain-like pattern over green sides, common in weedy lakes and sluggish rivers of the eastern United States.
freshwater
Blue Skate
One of the largest skates in the northeast Atlantic, now rare and heavily protected after historic overfishing collapsed its populations across much of its former range.
cartilaginous
Chain Moray
A dark, boldly patterned moray with a yellow chain-like network across its body, often seen in shallow tide pools and rocky Caribbean shorelines even outside water at low tide.
reef
California Scorpionfish
A mottled reddish-brown scorpionfish of the California coast, camouflaged against rocky and sandy bottoms and equipped with venomous spines along its dorsal fin.
saltwater
Bighead Carp
A large, big-headed East Asian carp that filter-feeds on zooplankton, closely related to the silver carp and similarly established as an invasive species in North American rivers.
freshwater
Blue Ling
A slender, deep-water relative of the cod, the Blue Ling lives along northeastern Atlantic continental slopes and forms dense spawning aggregations at specific deep-sea sites.
deepsea
Bridled Burrfish
A small Caribbean burrfish with fixed, non-erectile spines and a pale body marked with fine dark reticulations and scattered blotches, often resting motionless among seagrass.
reefBlue Gularis
One of the largest African killifish, males display an elongated lyre-shaped tail and vivid blue-green body with red barring, native to Nigerian and Cameroonian wetlands.
freshwater
Blonde Ray
A large European skate named for its pale, sandy coloration, recognized by prominent eye-like spots near the base of each pectoral fin and a preference for sandy coastal seabeds.
cartilaginous
Blue Shark
A slender, wide-ranging oceanic shark with a striking indigo-blue back, long pointed pectoral fins, and large eyes, found throughout temperate and tropical open oceans worldwide.
cartilaginous
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.
saltwater
Banded Rainbowfish
A highly variable, boldly patterned rainbowfish from northeastern Australia, often showing multiple dark horizontal stripes and vivid regional color forms.
freshwater
Bay Pipefish
The bay pipefish is a long, slender pipefish common in eelgrass beds and estuaries along the Pacific coast of North America, closely matching the green-brown color and shape of the eelgrass blades it hides among.
brackish