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.
Grunt Sculpin
A small, oddly shaped sculpin with an elongated, beak-like snout and orange-and-brown striped body, famous for mimicking the appearance of an empty giant acorn barnacle shell.
saltwater
Kryptopterus
A small, almost entirely transparent Southeast Asian catfish whose internal skeleton and organs are visible through its glass-like body, popular in the aquarium trade.
freshwater
Kelp Rockfish
A mottled brown-and-olive rockfish closely tied to kelp forest habitat along the California coast, where its coloring provides camouflage among kelp stipes and rocky understory.
saltwater
Island Trevally
The Island Trevally is a deep-bodied jack found around Indo-Pacific reefs, recognized by faint yellow-orange spots scattered along its silvery flanks and a forked yellow tail.
reef
Goliath Grouper
One of the largest bony fish on Atlantic reefs, the goliath grouper is a massive, mottled brown ambush predator that shelters around wrecks, caves, and mangrove-lined shorelines.
reef
Giant Grouper
The largest bony fish found on coral reefs, the giant grouper is a massive Indo-Pacific predator with a huge head and mouth, capable of ambushing prey as large as small sharks and turtles.
reef
Green Sunfish
A hardy, aggressive small sunfish with a large mouth and dark greenish-blue body marked with yellow-green flecking, tolerant of poor water conditions where few other sunfish can survive.
freshwater
Giant Oceanic Manta Ray
The largest ray in the world, a black-and-white filter feeder with enormous triangular pectoral fins and distinctive cephalic lobes used to funnel plankton into its mouth.
cartilaginous
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