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.
Red Rainbowfish
A striking, deep-bodied rainbowfish endemic to Lake Sentani in Papua, New Guinea, with adult males turning an intense salmon-red as they mature.
freshwater
Black Drum
The Black Drum is a deep-bodied, greyish-black sciaenid with distinctive chin barbels, found in estuaries and coastal waters from the mid-Atlantic to Argentina.
brackish
Black Molly
A solid-black, selectively bred color strain of the common molly, the black molly is one of the most recognizable and widely kept aquarium livebearers.
freshwater
Black Swallower
A small deep-sea fish renowned for an extraordinarily distensible stomach that lets it engulf prey several times its own body length and mass in a single strike.
deepsea
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
Black Crappie
A silvery panfish mottled with irregular dark speckling, closely related to the White Crappie but preferring clearer water, and one of the most popular schooling panfish in North America.
freshwaterBlack Hagfish
The black hagfish is a jawless, deep-sea scavenger found on the muddy continental slope off the Pacific coast of North America, notable for its uniformly dark coloration.
deepsea
Black Marlin
A massive, powerful billfish of the Indo-Pacific known for its rigid, immovable pectoral fins and status as one of the largest bony fish in the ocean.
pelagic
Black Rockfish
A dark, deep-bodied schooling rockfish common over rocky reefs and kelp forests along the Pacific coast, often seen in large surface-oriented aggregations.
saltwater
Red-eye Tetra
A hardy, wide-ranging South American characin identified by its striking red iris band and bold black-and-white marked tail base.
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
Red Devil Cichlid
A bold, thick-lipped Nicaraguan cichlid known for its fiery orange-red or white coloration and famously feisty, combative temperament.
freshwater
Salmon-red Rainbowfish
A deep-bodied rainbowfish endemic to Lake Sentani in Papua, Indonesia, where mature males develop a vivid overall salmon-red to orange coloration.
freshwater
Pacific Red Snapper
A bright reddish-pink snapper of rocky reefs along the Eastern Pacific coast from Mexico to Peru, closely resembling its Atlantic namesake but found in a different ocean.
reef
Chinese High-Fin Banded Shark
Despite its name, the Chinese High-Fin Banded Shark is not a shark at all but a large freshwater sucker native to China's Yangtze River basin, known for its tall sail-like dorsal fin.
freshwater
Tiger Tail Seahorse
A Southeast Asian reef seahorse easily recognized by the bold alternating light and dark stripes banding its prehensile tail, resembling a tiger's pattern.
reef
Black Neon Tetra
A small Brazilian tetra marked by a bold black horizontal stripe paired with a shimmering silvery-white line above it, a popular schooling fish in freshwater aquariums.
freshwater
Black Ghost Knifefish
A uniformly black, blade-shaped freshwater fish that swims using a long undulating ventral fin and navigates using a weak electric field generated along its body.
freshwater
Black Sea Bass
A stocky, dark-bodied grouper relative common on rocky reefs and wrecks along the temperate western Atlantic coast, easily recognized by its high arched back and blunt head.
reef
Black Sea Bream
A deep-bodied porgy of the Mediterranean and Eastern Atlantic, notable for males that excavate and guard nest depressions on the seabed during spawning.
saltwater
Black Phantom Tetra
A gray-black Paraguay basin characin known for its dramatic sail-like dorsal fin displays and mild social hierarchy behavior among males.
freshwater
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
Head and Tail Light Tetra
An Amazon and Guiana river characin named for its glowing metallic eye and tail-base spots, resembling a pair of tiny headlights.
freshwaterTwo-spot Red Snapper
The two-spot red snapper, or bohar snapper, is a large, deep red Indo-Pacific reef predator, sometimes showing two pale saddle spots on the back, and an important predator on coral reef slopes.
reef