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.
Bocaccio
A large, streamlined rockfish with a prominent lower jaw and reddish-brown to olive coloring, once heavily depleted along the Pacific coast and now the focus of long-term rebuilding efforts.
saltwater
Blackwing Flyingfish
A stocky, wide-ranging flyingfish named for its large dusky-black pectoral wings, found gliding above open ocean surface waters across much of the world's warm and temperate seas.
pelagic
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
Arctic Lamprey
The Arctic lamprey is a jawless, circumpolar species found across Arctic and sub-Arctic rivers and coastal waters of North America and Asia, recognized by its sucker mouth and slender eel-like body.
brackish
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
Zebra Mbuna
One of the most iconic Lake Malawi cichlids, the zebra mbuna is highly variable in color across populations but typically shows bold barring, and it forms the basis for one of the aquarium hobby's most popular mbuna groups.
freshwater
Stingray
A flat, diamond-shaped cartilaginous fish that spends much of its time partly buried in sand on shallow tropical seafloors, related to sharks and equipped with a long, whip-like venomous-spined tail.
cartilaginous
Tarpon Snook Blenny
A slender, elongated pikeblenny with a pointed snout and torpedo-shaped body, sheltering in abandoned tube-worm holes on sandy reef flats and seagrass beds of the western Atlantic and Caribbean.
reef
Spotted Seahorse
The spotted seahorse, also called the yellow seahorse, is a widespread Indo-Pacific species with a smooth body, low coronet, and highly variable coloring that ranges from plain yellow to dark blotched patterns.
reef
Round Goby
A bottom-dwelling goby native to the Black and Caspian Sea basins, now a widespread invasive species in the Great Lakes and parts of Europe, recognized by its fused pelvic fins and dark spot on the front dorsal fin.
freshwater
Salvini Cichlid
A colorful, feisty Central American cichlid, the salvini displays a striking mix of gold, black, and turquoise, and is known for defending territory vigorously in the rivers and lakes it calls home.
freshwater
Sand Tiger Shark
A bulky, fierce-looking but generally docile shark with protruding rows of needle-like teeth, commonly seen hovering near shipwrecks and reef caves along temperate and subtropical coastlines.
cartilaginous
Red Lionfish
Instantly recognizable for its fan-like, striped fins and venomous spines, the red lionfish is a native Indo-Pacific reef predator that has become a damaging invasive species in the Western Atlantic.
reef
Poor Cod
The poor cod is a small, golden-brown Gadidae common around rocky reefs and harbors of the northeastern Atlantic and Mediterranean, identified by its short chin barbel and dark pectoral-fin blotch.
saltwater
Reticulated Hillstream Loach
The Reticulated Hillstream Loach is a flat, disc-shaped fish from Vietnamese mountain streams, patterned with an intricate net-like design and adapted to cling to rocks in swift current.
freshwater
Redtail Notho
A small East African annual killifish from Zanzibar, prized for the male's vivid red, black-edged tail. It lives in temporary rain pools and survives the dry season as drought-resistant eggs buried in mud.
freshwater
Rachovi Killifish
A vividly colored annual killifish from coastal Mozambique, with males showing a turquoise body and a tricolor red-yellow-blue tail. It lives in temporary floodplain pools near Beira.
freshwater
Pacific Herring
A slender, silvery schooling fish closely related to the Atlantic Herring, found in cold coastal waters across the North Pacific, where it forms a critical forage base for fish, seabirds, and marine mammals.
pelagic
Ornate Ghost Pipefish
The ornate ghost pipefish is a strikingly patterned reef fish covered in frilly skin extensions that let it blend seamlessly with crinoids and soft corals. It is one of the most photographed of the ghost pipefish species.
reef
Pacific Anchovy
A small, slender schooling fish abundant along the eastern Pacific coast from Canada to Baja California, the Pacific Anchovy is a key forage species known for its long snout and prominent silvery lateral stripe.
pelagic
Mosquitofish
A small, drab livebearer native to the central and southeastern United States, the mosquitofish is famous for its voracious appetite for mosquito larvae and has been introduced worldwide for pest control.
freshwater
Marble Trout
Marble trout are a large, distinctively patterned native trout of the Balkan Peninsula, named for the marbled, olive-and-brown pattern covering their body, and are now considered vulnerable due to hybridization with introduced brown trout.
freshwaterIndian Oil Sardine
A small, oil-rich pelagic fish abundant along India's western coast and the wider northern Indian Ocean, the Indian Oil Sardine forms massive schools and is one of the region's most heavily monitored fisheries species.
pelagic
Keyhole Cichlid
A calm, mild-mannered South American cichlid named for the distinctive dark keyhole-shaped blotch on its flank, this species is known for its subdued coloration and unusually peaceful temperament.
freshwater