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.
Amberjack
A powerful, deep-bodied jack that patrols reefs and wrecks worldwide in warm seas, known for its stubborn fighting strength and amber-tinted flanks.
reef
Barracuda
A large, torpedo-shaped predatory fish found around tropical reefs, seagrass beds, and open coastal waters worldwide, easily identified by its underbite jaw and fang-like teeth.
reef
Amazon Molly
An entirely female species that reproduces through a rare cloning-like process, the Amazon molly is a biological curiosity native to rivers along the Texas-Mexico border.
freshwater
Banded Rudderfish
A western Atlantic jack whose boldly banded juveniles shelter beneath floating debris, later maturing into plainer, olive-silvery adults resembling small amberjacks.
saltwater
Aiptasia-eating Filefish
A small, drab Indo-Pacific filefish prized in reef aquariums for its habit of eating Aiptasia glass anemones, blending into seagrass and algae with mottled camouflage.
reef
Banded Killifish
A slender, silvery killifish common in vegetated lakes and slow streams of eastern North America, marked with numerous thin dark vertical bars along its flanks.
freshwater
Allen's Damselfish
A slender, iridescent blue damselfish with a bright yellow tail, native to reefs of the Coral Triangle and known for its striking two-tone coloration.
reef
Bat Ray
A large, dark-backed eagle ray of the eastern Pacific coast, often seen gliding over sand flats or excavating pits to unearth buried prey.
cartilaginous
African Sharptooth Catfish
A hardy, air-breathing catfish native to Africa and the Middle East, capable of surviving in low-oxygen water and even moving briefly over land, now widely farmed and invasive elsewhere.
freshwater
American Brook Lamprey
The American brook lamprey is a small, non-parasitic freshwater lamprey found in clean streams across eastern North America, closely related to the Arctic lamprey but never feeding once it reaches adulthood.
freshwater
Bagre Catfish
A silvery marine and estuarine catfish of the western Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico, recognizable by its elongated sail-like dorsal fin filament and mouth-brooding parenting behavior.
saltwater
Alaska Pollock
An abundant, silvery schooling fish of the cold North Pacific and Bering Sea, closely related to Atlantic Cod and among the most numerous commercially significant fish in the world.
saltwater
American Gizzard Shad
A deep-bodied, blunt-snouted herring relative common in lakes and rivers across eastern and central North America, the American Gizzard Shad is a highly abundant forage fish named for its muscular, gizzard-like stomach.
freshwater
African Pompano
A deep-bodied jack whose juveniles trail extraordinarily long fin filaments while drifting near floating debris, maturing into steep-headed adults over deep reefs and wrecks.
pelagic
Angelfish
A tall, laterally flattened cichlid from the Amazon basin, prized in the aquarium hobby for its striking triangular fin profile and extensive range of bred color varieties.
freshwater
African Arowana
A large African bonytongue fish with a toothless, filter-feeding mouth adapted for straining plankton and detritus from floodplain waters.
freshwater
Arapaima
One of the largest freshwater fish in the world, this massive Amazonian species has thick armor-like scales and must surface periodically to breathe air.
freshwater
Agujon Needlefish
One of the largest needlefish species, the Agujon Needlefish is a long, torpedo-like predator with an elongated toothy beak, found in warm coastal and offshore waters worldwide.
saltwater
Anglerfish
A bizarre deep-sea predator that lures prey with a bioluminescent lure atop its head, adapted to life in total darkness at crushing ocean depths.
deepsea
Alewife
A small, silvery anadromous herring native to the Atlantic coast of North America, recognizable by a single dark shoulder spot, that migrates from the ocean into freshwater rivers and lakes each spring to spawn.
brackish
American Flagfish
A stocky, deep-bodied killifish native to Florida, named for the red-and-blue striped, star-marked flank pattern of breeding males reminiscent of a flag.
freshwater
Achilles Tang
A striking black surgeonfish with a bold orange-red teardrop marking near its tail and matching scalpel-like tail spine. It inhabits high-surf reef zones across the Pacific.
reef
American Eel
The American Eel spends most of its life in North American rivers and estuaries before migrating once to the Sargasso Sea to spawn and die.
freshwaterAtlantic Silverside
A slender, schooling coastal fish common along the western Atlantic shoreline, marked by a bright silver stripe running down each flank.
brackish
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
Ballan Wrasse
The largest wrasse in northern European waters, a stout rocky-reef fish with highly variable green, brown, or reddish mottling.
saltwater
Arctic Grayling
The Arctic grayling is a cold-water salmonid recognized by its tall, colorfully spotted dorsal fin, inhabiting clean rivers and lakes across northern North America and Siberia.
freshwater
Banded Archerfish
A silvery, deep-bodied fish famous for spitting jets of water to knock insects off overhanging vegetation into the water below. Bold dark bands and a flattened, upturned mouth make it easy to recognize.
brackish
Banded Drum
A small, deep-bodied drum from the western Atlantic, distinguished by faint vertical bars crossing its silvery, high-backed body.
saltwater
Arctic Char
A cold-adapted char of circumpolar northern waters, showing extremely variable coloration and body form across isolated lake and anadromous populations.
freshwater
Australian Rainbowfish
A widespread, variably colored rainbowfish found across tropical Australian and southern New Guinea waterways, ranging from olive-silver to vivid blue and yellow forms.
freshwater
Arctic Cod
Arctic cod, or polar cod, is a small, ice-associated Gadidae found throughout the circumpolar Arctic, recognized by its slender body, deeply forked tail, and role as the region's key forage fish.
pelagic
Atlantic Salmon
An iconic anadromous fish of the North Atlantic, born in cold rivers, maturing at sea, and returning to natal streams to spawn.
freshwater
Atlantic Croaker
The Atlantic Croaker is a silvery-bronze estuarine fish with a single chin barbel and faint wavy mottling, abundant along the western Atlantic coast.
brackish
Atlantic Sturgeon
The Atlantic sturgeon is a large, armored anadromous fish of eastern North America, spending years at sea before returning to coastal rivers to spawn.
brackish
Australian Lungfish
One of the most primitive living fish, this large freshwater species has a single lung, paddle-like fins, and a lineage that has remained largely unchanged for over 100 million years.
freshwater
Atlantic Bluefin Tuna
A massive, torpedo-shaped, deep blue-backed tuna built for speed and long-distance migration across the Atlantic Ocean and Mediterranean Sea.
pelagic
Atlantic Bonito
A streamlined, fast-swimming relative of tuna and mackerel, marked by dark oblique stripes running across its steel-blue back.
pelagic
Atlantic Menhaden
A deep-bodied, oily, silvery schooling fish found in vast numbers along the U.S. Atlantic coast, notable for a large dark shoulder spot and its outsized ecological role as a filter-feeding forage species.
pelagic
Auratus Cichlid
A small, strikingly striped mbuna from Lake Malawi, the auratus cichlid reverses its coloration between sexes as it matures, with golden juveniles giving way to dark, aggressive adult males.
freshwater
Atlantic Mackerel
A fast-swimming schooling fish with iridescent blue-green wavy stripes across its back, found in cold and temperate waters on both sides of the North Atlantic.
pelagic
Atlantic Pollock
A fast, schooling North Atlantic gadid with a dark streamlined body and pale lateral line, often found swimming in open water over the shelf.
pelagic
Atlantic Wolffish
A large, eel-like cold-water fish with powerful crushing jaws, sheltering solitarily in rocky dens across the North Atlantic.
saltwater
Bala Shark
A torpedo-shaped, silver freshwater fish named for its shark-like body outline, though it is a true minnow relative, not a shark. Bold black margins on its fins make it a striking, fast-swimming schooler of Southeast Asian rivers.
freshwater
Balao
A slender, silvery halfbeak with a needle-like lower jaw that schools near the surface of warm Atlantic waters.
pelagic
Atlantic Mudskipper
An amphibious goby that hops and skips across mangrove mudflats using muscular pectoral fins, breathing air through its skin and mouth lining when out of water.
brackishAustralian 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
Ballyhoo
A slender, silvery halfbeak of coastal Atlantic waters, easily recognized by its long lower jaw tipped in red-orange, often seen skittering across the surface in schools.
saltwater