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.
Longtail Tuna
A coastal tuna of the Indo-West Pacific with a notably slender, elongated body and a long, low second dorsal fin, often found closer to shore than other tunas.
pelagicFreshwater Moray
An unusual moray that spends much of its adult life in rivers and estuaries rather than the sea, identified by its slender olive-brown body and fine dark mottling.
brackishFoxface 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.
reefClown Triggerfish
An unmistakable black-bodied Indo-Pacific triggerfish covered in bold white spots below, with yellow-orange lips; wedges into reef crevices using a locking dorsal spine.
reefBluespotted Rabbitfish
A vividly colored rabbitfish with a yellow-orange body scattered with small electric-blue spots, commonly seen grazing coral-rich reef flats across the Indo-Pacific.
reefRuby Seadragon
The ruby seadragon is a rare, deep-dwelling relative of the leafy and weedy seadragons discovered in 2015 off Western Australia. Unlike its relatives, it lacks leaf-like appendages and has a distinctive reddish body.
reefPeacock Wrasse
A colorful Mediterranean and eastern Atlantic wrasse whose males display vivid green-blue bodies with orange spots and blue facial stripes, commonly seen darting among rocky reefs and seagrass beds.
saltwaterDiamond Killifish
A tiny, unusually deep-bodied killifish from Gulf Coast salt marshes, named for its compressed, diamond-shaped profile. It tolerates wide swings in salinity within tidal creeks and marsh pools.
brackishCrappie
A deep-bodied, silvery panfish found in North American lakes and slow rivers, marked by irregular dark blotches or vertical bars depending on species. The genus Pomoxis includes the Black Crappie and White Crappie.
freshwaterSpanish Grunt
The Spanish grunt is a deep-bodied, silvery-yellow reef grunt of the western Atlantic and Caribbean, marked by dark scale rows and a large mouth used to crush hard-shelled prey.
reefRock Wrasse
A common temperate wrasse of California and Baja kelp forests, recognized by its elongated olive-green body, salmon-pink belly, and a dark saddle-like blotch near the tail.
saltwaterRock Beauty Angelfish
A vividly two-toned Caribbean angelfish with a bright yellow front half, a black rear body, and blue-edged fins, commonly seen darting among reef crevices and ledges.
reefRaphael Catfish
A hardy South American armored catfish known for the bold cream stripes running along its dark body and its ability to produce audible clicking sounds when handled.
freshwaterRachovi 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.
freshwaterGreen Scat
A green-toned color variant of the Spotted Scat, with the same deep, disc-shaped body but a more uniform olive-green wash and lighter spotting. Found in the same brackish estuaries and harbors across the Indo-Pacific.
brackishWhitespotted Puffer
A common Indo-Pacific reef puffer with a dark olive-brown body scattered with small white spots and distinctive dark rings around its eyes, gills, and pectoral fin bases.
reefWideband Clownfish
A dark brown-to-black anemonefish with a single thick white band across the mid-body, restricted to temperate-edge reefs around Lord Howe Island, eastern Australia, and New Caledonia.
reefThreadfin Trevally
An Indo-Pacific jack whose juveniles trail extraordinarily long thread-like fins, maturing into deep-bodied, steep-headed adults over sandy coastal bottoms and reef edges.
reefRudd
A deep-bodied European cyprinid known for brassy-gold flanks and vivid orange-red fins, the rudd frequents weedy lakes and slow rivers, feeding near the surface on insects and plants.
freshwaterRedear Sunfish
A deep-bodied sunfish named for the bright red-orange margin on its black ear flap, notable for its specialized diet of snails and other mollusks in warm southern lakes and ponds.
freshwaterMoray Eel
A long, serpentine reef predator that hides in crevices by day, identified by its scaleless body, continuous fin along the back, and powerful jaws with a rarely seen second set of pharyngeal jaws.
reefMoonlight Gourami
A sleek, silvery-green Mekong basin gourami with an iridescent sheen and vivid orange-red pelvic fin filaments, notably lacking the dark body spots seen in many related species.
freshwaterIsland 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.
reefGardner'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