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.
Scaled Sardine
A small, deep-bodied silvery fish that forms dense inshore schools along the Western Atlantic coast, easily confused with other small herring-like species.
saltwater
Gulf Menhaden
A deep-bodied, oily-scaled herring relative that forms enormous schools in Gulf of Mexico estuaries, playing a major role as a forage fish in coastal food webs.
brackish
Common Dace
A slender, silvery cyprinid of clean, fast-flowing rivers, the common dace forms active shoals in mid-water, darting to snatch drifting insects from the current.
freshwater
Blue Ling
A slender, deep-water relative of the cod, the Blue Ling lives along northeastern Atlantic continental slopes and forms dense spawning aggregations at specific deep-sea sites.
deepsea
Lyretail Anthias
The lyretail anthias is a small, vividly orange-pink reef fish that forms large, colorful schools over coral drop-offs, with males sporting an elongated lyre-shaped tail.
reef
French Grunt
The French grunt is a small, abundant reef fish of the Caribbean and western Atlantic, marked by narrow yellow stripes over a silvery-white body and known for forming dense daytime schools.
reef
Black Jack
The Black Jack is a large, uniformly dark trevally that forms big schools around offshore tropical reefs and current-swept drop-offs across the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic Oceans.
reef
West African Lungfish
An eel-shaped African lungfish able to survive months of drought by burrowing into mud and forming a protective cocoon while it aestivates.
freshwater
Tinfoil Barb
A large, fast-swimming barb with brilliant silver, mirror-like scales and orange-red fins, the tinfoil barb inhabits big Southeast Asian rivers and forms sizable shoals in open water.
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
Yellow Watchman Goby
A bright yellow burrowing goby that forms a cooperative partnership with pistol shrimp, sharing a burrow while acting as lookout for the nearly blind shrimp.
reef
Goldfish
A hardy freshwater fish domesticated from the wild Prussian carp, prized worldwide as an ornamental pond and aquarium species in many color forms.
freshwater
Common Roach
A widespread European freshwater fish with a silvery body and distinctive red-orange fins, forming large shoals in slow rivers, lakes, and canals.
freshwater
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
Spanish Sardine
A schooling pelagic fish found throughout warm Atlantic and Mediterranean waters, the Spanish Sardine is larger than the related European Sardine and forms an important forage species across its wide tropical to subtropical range.
pelagicGreen Chromis
The Green Chromis is a small, shimmering blue-green damselfish that forms large schools hovering above branching coral heads on Indo-Pacific reefs.
reef
Bigeye Trevally
A large, silvery-to-black reef jack famous for forming massive, swirling daytime schools around Indo-Pacific reef passes and drop-offs.
reefIndian 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
Allis Shad
A large anadromous herring relative native to Europe's Atlantic coast, the Allis Shad spends most of its life at sea but migrates into large rivers each spring to spawn, forming runs that have been much reduced.
brackish
Common Bream
A deep-bodied, bronze-flanked European fish that forms large shoals in slow rivers and lakes, feeding on the bottom with a distinctive protrusible, tube-like mouth.
freshwater
Porkfish
A bright yellow Caribbean grunt marked by two bold black diagonal stripes across the head, forming large schools that shelter near reef structure by day.
reef
European Pilchard (Sardine)
A small, silvery schooling fish found along the eastern Atlantic coast and throughout the Mediterranean, forming vast shoals that graze on plankton near the surface of coastal waters.
pelagic
Bleak
A small, slender, silvery cyprinid, the bleak forms huge surface shoals in rivers and lakes, snapping at insects and once prized for its scales used in imitation pearls.
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