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.
Denison Barb
A striking torpedo-shaped barb endemic to fast hill streams of India's Western Ghats, known for its bold red-black-yellow stripe and endangered status.
freshwater
Guitarfish
A shark-like ray with a flattened, guitar-shaped body that blends features of sharks and rays, common on sandy coastal seabeds of the eastern Atlantic and Mediterranean.
cartilaginous
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
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
Cobia
A large, elongated, shark-like fish that roams warm coastal waters worldwide and often follows rays, turtles, and floating structure.
pelagic
Longnose Chimaera
A deep-water cartilaginous fish related to sharks, marked by an unmistakably long pointed snout and a slender tapering body cruising continental slopes far below sunlight.
cartilaginous
Sturgeon
An ancient family of large, armored bony fish with bony scutes instead of scales and a shark-like barbeled snout. Sturgeon migrate between rivers and the sea to spawn and are among the most endangered fish groups.
brackish
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
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
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
Spotfin Croaker
A robust surf-zone drum from Southern California and Baja, easily identified by a bold black spot at the base of each pectoral fin.
saltwater
California Sheephead
A large sequential-hermaphrodite wrasse of California and Baja kelp forests, with males showing a striking black-and-red pattern and prominent canine teeth used to crush hard-shelled prey.
reef
Pufferfish
A slow-swimming reef fish famous for inflating its body into a spiny ball when threatened, using a fused beak-like set of teeth to feed on hard-shelled invertebrates and algae.
reef
Common Lumpsucker
Shaped like a rounded ball with a sucker disc instead of pelvic fins, the Common Lumpsucker drifts through cold North Atlantic waters before moving inshore to spawn on rocky shores.
saltwaterSnyder's Moray
A little-seen, plain brownish moray restricted to deep rocky reefs off California and Baja California, rarely encountered due to its preference for depths well beyond typical diving range.
reefWhite Croaker
The White Croaker is a pale, silvery-brassy sciaenid common in shallow Pacific coastal waters from British Columbia to Baja California.
saltwater
Lumpsucker
A rounded, ball-shaped North Atlantic fish with rough tuberculate skin and a ventral sucker disc used to cling to rocks and kelp.
saltwater
Jacksmelt
A larger, long-bodied silverside found along the California and Baja coasts, often schooling in bays and nearshore waters alongside the smaller Topsmelt.
saltwater
Balloon Molly
A selectively bred molly variety with a distinctive rounded, ball-shaped body caused by a spinal curvature, developed and maintained through aquarium breeding.
freshwater
Pacific Lamprey
The Pacific lamprey is a jawless, anadromous fish with a toothed sucking disc mouth, found along Pacific coastlines from Baja California to Japan and Alaska.
saltwaterFantail Sole
A right-eyed Pacific flatfish named for its broadly rounded, fan-like tail, common on sandy bottoms from California to Baja California.
saltwater
California Killifish
A stout, hardy killifish native to salt marshes and estuaries from California to Baja California. It tolerates extreme swings in salinity within tidal sloughs and lagoons.
brackish
Rock 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.
saltwater
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