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.
Banded Knifefish
An elongated, eel-like South American fish that generates weak electric fields to navigate and communicate in murky water.
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
Thresher Shark
An unmistakable shark with an extraordinarily long, whip-like upper tail lobe used to stun schooling prey, found roaming temperate and tropical open oceans worldwide.
cartilaginousGulper Eel
A bizarre deep-sea eel with a massively oversized, hinged jaw and a whip-like tail far longer than its body, adapted to swallow prey larger than itself in the food-scarce abyss.
deepsea
Sparkling Gourami
A tiny, jewel-like Southeast Asian gourami covered in iridescent blue-green spangling and reddish stripes, small enough to be one of the smallest gouramis kept in aquariums.
freshwater
Sea Lamprey
The sea lamprey is a primitive, jawless, eel-like fish famous for its parasitic sucker-disc mouth ringed with sharp teeth, which it uses to latch onto and feed on other fish.
saltwater
Sand Sole
A northeastern Pacific flatfish identified by long, thread-like free dorsal fin rays at the front of its head, light brown spotted body, and shallow sandy habitat.
saltwater
Port Jackson Shark
A distinctive, slow-moving Australian bullhead shark with a blunt pig-like snout, bold harness-shaped markings, and blunt crushing teeth for eating shellfish.
saltwater
Ocellate River Stingray
A striking South American freshwater stingray with bold eyespot-like rings across its disc, common in the Amazon and Paraná river basins and popular in the aquarium trade.
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
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
Zebra Moray
The Zebra Moray is a striped Indo-Pacific reef eel with blunt, peg-like teeth specialized for crushing crabs, mollusks, and sea urchins.
reefTiger Trout
Tiger trout are a sterile hybrid between brown trout and brook trout, prized by anglers for their striking maze-like markings and aggressive feeding habits.
freshwater
Scissortail Rasbora
A slender silver rasbora named for its striking black-and-white tail markings that open and close in a scissor-like motion while swimming.
freshwater
Red Phantom Tetra
A blackwater Orinoco characin with a rosy translucent body and bold black shoulder mark, known for its tall, flag-like dorsal fin in males.
freshwater
Northern Sea Robin
A bottom-dwelling western Atlantic fish with an armored head and huge wing-like pectoral fins, using leg-like fin rays to walk across the seafloor.
saltwater
Frilled Shark
An eel-like, primitive deep-sea shark often called a living fossil, with six frilly gill slits and rows of needle-like teeth for catching soft-bodied prey.
deepsea
Black Skirt Tetra
A silvery-gray tetra with a flowing black skirt-like tail and fins, whose dark coloration typically fades somewhat as the fish matures.
freshwater
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
Leopard Bush Fish
A round-bodied Congo basin ambush predator patterned with dark leopard-like spots, prized in aquariums for its striking camouflage and air-breathing labyrinth organ.
freshwater
Weedy Seadragon
A slender, reddish-purple relative of the seahorse decorated with small leaf-like fin projections and yellow stripes, found along the temperate reefs of southern Australia.
reef
Striped Sea Robin
A bottom-dwelling northwestern Atlantic fish with an armored head and wing-like pectoral fins, the Striped Sea Robin shows bold dark diagonal bars along its brownish body.
saltwater
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
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