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.
Ukrainian Brook Lamprey
The Ukrainian brook lamprey is a small, non-parasitic jawless fish that lives its entire life in freshwater streams of Eastern Europe, feeding only during a long larval stage.
freshwaterKorean Lamprey
The Korean lamprey is a small, non-parasitic jawless fish native to freshwater streams of the Korean Peninsula, feeding only during a long larval stage before a brief adult life.
freshwater
Sailfish
One of the fastest fish in the ocean, instantly recognizable by its towering, sail-like dorsal fin and elongated spear-like upper jaw used to slash through schools of prey.
pelagicRock Gunnel
A slender, eel-like intertidal fish of the North Atlantic, the Rock Gunnel hides under rocks and seaweed and is marked by a row of pale-ringed spots along its dorsal fin.
saltwater
Paddlefish
A large, ancient North American fish with a long paddle-shaped snout used to detect plankton, related to sturgeon rather than sharks despite its shark-like tail.
freshwater
Rainbow Runner
A slender, torpedo-bodied jack with two vivid blue-green stripes, found roaming warm oceans worldwide, often trailing larger pelagic fish like tuna and sharks.
pelagic
Pearl Gourami
A peaceful Southeast Asian labyrinth fish prized for its lace-like pearly pattern and a black stripe running from snout to tail, with males showing an orange throat and breast.
freshwater
Mahseer
A powerful, large-scaled carp of fast Himalayan rivers, the golden mahseer is prized as one of the hardest-fighting freshwater fish, with a thick, muscular body built for holding in strong current.
freshwater
Northern Anchovy
A small, slender schooling fish with a pointed snout and large mouth, abundant along the Pacific coast of North America, where it forms a key part of the California Current forage base.
pelagic
Marlin
A large, powerful open-ocean billfish with a long rounded spear-like bill and a tall crested back, prized as one of the ocean's fastest and most sought-after game fish.
pelagic
Ide
A robust, silvery cyprinid of large European rivers and lakes, the ide (commonly bred as the golden 'orfe') forms active surface shoals and is a widely stocked ornamental pond fish worldwide.
freshwater
Common Carp
A large, hardy, bottom-feeding fish native to Eurasia and now found worldwide, recognizable by its stout body, barbels, and long dorsal fin, and the wild ancestor of ornamental koi.
freshwater
Carp
A heavy-bodied freshwater fish with large, coarse scales, two pairs of barbels near its mouth, and a highly adaptable, bottom-foraging lifestyle found across much of the world.
freshwater
Apache Trout
The Apache trout is a golden-yellow native trout found only in the high-elevation streams of Arizona's White Mountains, and it is the state fish of Arizona following decades of conservation recovery efforts.
freshwaterAustralian Lamprey
The Australian lamprey is a primitive, eel-like jawless fish that spends part of its life as a marine parasite before migrating into coastal rivers of southern Australia and New Zealand to spawn.
brackish
Baltic Herring
A smaller, brackish-water subspecies of the Atlantic Herring, the Baltic Herring is adapted to the low-salinity Baltic Sea and forms one of the region's most abundant and ecologically important schooling fish.
brackish
Whitespotted Moray
A brown moray eel densely covered in small, evenly spaced white spots, commonly seen with its head poking from crevices on shallow Indo-Pacific coral reefs.
reef
Talbot's Damselfish
A small damselfish with a yellow head, a pale lavender-grey body, and a distinctive black spot on the rear dorsal fin, found sheltering among branching coral on western Pacific reefs.
reef
Sheepshead Bream
The sheepshead bream, or white seabream, is a silvery sparid marked by dark vertical bars and a black tail-base spot, common over rocky reefs and seagrass in the Mediterranean and eastern Atlantic.
reef
Malabar Grouper
The Malabar grouper is a large, olive-grey Indo-Pacific grouper covered in dark blotches and small pale spots, found across coastal reefs, estuaries, and mangrove-lined coasts.
reef
Black Sea Bass
A stocky, dark-bodied grouper relative common on rocky reefs and wrecks along the temperate western Atlantic coast, easily recognized by its high arched back and blunt head.
reef
Western Brook Lamprey
The western brook lamprey is a small, non-parasitic jawless fish that spends most of its life as a burrowing larva in Pacific Northwest streams before a brief, non-feeding adult stage.
freshwaterTadpole Cod
The tadpole cod is a tiny, translucent Gadiform fish named for its tadpole-like shape, found in warm surface waters worldwide and distinguished by its thread-like forward pelvic fins.
pelagic
Round Herring
Named for its unusually rounded, cylindrical body, the Round Herring is a schooling coastal pelagic fish found in temperate and subtropical seas worldwide, serving as an important forage species for larger predators.
pelagic