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.
Keeltail Needlefish
A slender needlefish easily identified by the raised keel-like ridge on either side of its tail base, found cruising the surface of warm coastal waters worldwide.
saltwater
Houndfish
A large, elongated needlefish with a crocodile-like beak of sharp teeth, found cruising just below the surface of warm coastal waters worldwide in search of small fish.
saltwater
Gilthead Bream
A deep-bodied Mediterranean and Eastern Atlantic sparid named for the golden band across its forehead. A euryhaline species that moves between coastal reefs and brackish lagoons.
saltwater
Crimson-spotted Rainbowfish
A small, deep-bodied rainbowfish native to coastal rivers of eastern Australia, recognized by its iridescent blue-green flanks marked with rows of crimson-red spots.
freshwater
Chinese Sturgeon
The Chinese sturgeon is a critically endangered anadromous fish that spends its adult life in coastal Chinese seas before migrating far up the Yangtze River to spawn.
brackish
Bastard Halibut
An alternate name for the olive flounder, a large East Asian coastal flatfish with a muscular olive-brown mottled body, big toothy mouth, and left-sided eyes.
saltwater
Atlantic Needlefish
A long, slender silvery fish with a needle-like toothy beak, common in coastal and estuarine waters of the western Atlantic where it hunts small fish near the surface.
brackish
Yellowtail
A streamlined, silvery jack with a distinctive yellow stripe running along its flanks and a yellow tail, found in temperate coastal waters worldwide.
pelagic
Red Drum
The Red Drum is a coppery-bronze coastal fish of the western Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico, best known for the dark eyespot near its tail.
brackish
Flame Tetra
A Rio de Janeiro coastal stream characin with a graduated flame-like color pattern from silver at the head to red-orange at the tail.
freshwaterAtlantic Silverside
A slender, schooling coastal fish common along the western Atlantic shoreline, marked by a bright silver stripe running down each flank.
brackish
Smalltooth Sawfish
A Critically Endangered ray-relative with a long, tooth-lined saw-like snout, once common in warm western Atlantic coastal waters but now greatly reduced in range.
cartilaginous
X-ray Tetra
A translucent coastal South American characin whose see-through body and bold black-white-yellow fin markings make it instantly recognizable.
brackish
Yucatan Molly
A large sailfin livebearer native to the coastal waters of the Yucatan Peninsula, known for the male's dramatically tall, sail-like dorsal fin used in courtship.
brackishWinter Flounder
The winter flounder is a small, right-eyed flatfish of the northwest Atlantic, named for its habit of moving into shallow coastal bays during the colder months.
saltwater
Snook
A sleek, silvery predator with a bold black lateral stripe and a distinctive sloped, pointed snout, closely tied to mangrove shorelines and warm coastal estuaries.
brackish
Java Rabbitfish
A greenish-brown rabbitfish patterned with fine wavy vermiculated markings, commonly found in mangrove-lined estuaries and brackish coastal waters of the Indo-Pacific.
brackish
Great White Shark
A massive, torpedo-shaped predator found in cool coastal and offshore waters worldwide, easily recognized by its sharp countershading and crescent-shaped tail.
cartilaginous
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
Garfish
A long, silvery, needle-jawed fish of European coastal waters, instantly recognizable by its bright green backbone and slender, beak-like snout.
pelagic
Green Jack
The Green Jack is a schooling eastern Pacific jack with a greenish-blue back, silvery sides, and yellowish lower fins, common in coastal surface waters.
pelagic
Fugu
The Tiger Puffer, an East Asian coastal pufferfish capable of rapid inflation, with internal organs containing the potent biological toxin tetrodotoxin as a natural defense.
saltwater
California Grunion
A slender coastal fish famous for coming fully ashore on sandy California beaches during nighttime spawning runs timed to spring high tides.
saltwater
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