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.
Round Herring
Named for its unusually rounded, cylindrical body, the Round Herring is a schooling coastal pelagic fish found in temperate and subtropical seas worldwide, serving as an important forage species for larger predators.
pelagic
Mangrove Jack
A deep red Indo-Pacific snapper whose juveniles grow up in mangrove estuaries and rivers, tolerating salinities from freshwater to full seawater.
brackish
Snapper
A robust, reef-dwelling fish with a reddish-pink body and striking red eyes, common over rocky bottoms, reefs, and wrecks throughout the Gulf of Mexico and western Atlantic.
reef
Rock Bass
A robust, bronze-colored sunfish relative with striking red eyes, often found around rocky cover in clear streams and lakes of eastern and central North America.
freshwater
Asian Arowana
A large, brightly colored freshwater fish prized for its metallic scales and dragon-like appearance, native to Southeast Asian rivers and now considered endangered in the wild.
freshwater
Fingerprint Filefish
The Fingerprint Filefish is a small reef filefish with a dark head, orange-brown body marked by fine irregular lines, and a bright orange tail.
reef
Harlequin Rasbora
A small, deep-bodied freshwater fish with a coppery-orange body and a distinctive black triangular patch covering the rear half, native to the blackwater streams of Southeast Asia.
freshwater
Bristol Bay Sockeye
Bristol Bay sockeye are the world's largest wild sockeye salmon run, turning brilliant red with olive-green heads as they surge from the Bering Sea into Alaska's rivers to spawn.
freshwater
Longspine Snapper
The longspine snapper is a slender, bright red deepwater snapper known for an elongated filament trailing from its dorsal fin, found on steep offshore slopes across the Indo-Pacific.
deepsea
Cherry Shrimp
A small freshwater shrimp selectively bred into a vivid cherry-red color form, popular for its algae- and detritus-grazing habits.
freshwater
Serpae Tetra
A vividly red-bodied tetra with a bold black shoulder patch, known for its assertive, nippy temperament within shoaling groups.
freshwater
Ember Parrotfish
The vivid orange-red juvenile color phase of the Redlip Parrotfish, prized in the aquarium trade for its fiery hue before it transforms into a much larger blue-green adult.
reef
Cinnamon Clownfish
A deep reddish-orange clownfish with dark shading across the body and a single white head bar, living among sea anemones on coral reefs of the western Pacific.
reefSpaghetti Eel
An extremely thin, worm-like burrowing eel that spends most of its life buried in sandy or muddy estuarine bottoms across the Indo-Pacific, rarely seen in the open.
brackish
Two-Banded Clownfish
An orange anemonefish with two broad white bars, the characteristic clownfish of the Red Sea and adjacent Gulf of Aden reefs, always found sheltering among host anemones.
reef
Banded Pipefish
The banded pipefish is a slender reef fish patterned with bold reddish-brown and white rings along its entire body, ending in a fan-shaped yellow tail fin marked with a dark spot.
reef
Mandarinfish
A tiny, vividly patterned reef fish covered in a maze-like network of blue, orange, and green, prized as one of the most colorful fish in the ocean.
reef
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
Shovelnose Sturgeon
The shovelnose sturgeon is the smallest and most abundant North American sturgeon, a slender river fish with a flattened snout and a thin whip-like tail filament.
freshwater
Angel Shark
A flattened, ray-like shark that buries itself in sand to ambush passing fish, once widespread but now one of the most critically threatened sharks in Europe.
saltwater
Madagascar Rainbowfish
An elongated, silvery rainbowfish from Madagascar's eastern rainforest rivers, recognized by its bold black-edged yellow and red fin markings.
freshwater
African Lungfish
An eel-like freshwater fish capable of breathing air and surviving months buried in dried mud during droughts, one of the most drought-resistant vertebrates known.
freshwater
Marlin
A large, powerful open-ocean billfish with a long rounded spear-like bill and a tall crested back, prized as one of the ocean's fastest and most sought-after game fish.
pelagic
Combtail Gourami
A robust Sri Lankan gourami named for the comb-like fringe along its dorsal, anal, and tail fins, more aggressive and predatory than most smaller gourami relatives.
freshwater