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.
Japanese Halfbeak
A slim, silvery surface fish with a long lower jaw, common in coastal and brackish waters around Japan, Korea, and China.
brackish
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
Discus
A round, flattened Amazonian cichlid prized for its vivid patterns and colors, considered one of the most striking freshwater aquarium fish and a demanding species to keep well.
freshwater
Rainbow Runner
A slender, torpedo-bodied jack with two vivid blue-green stripes, found roaming warm oceans worldwide, often trailing larger pelagic fish like tuna and sharks.
pelagic
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.
pelagicJapanese Sardine
A schooling pelagic fish abundant in the waters around Japan, the Japanese Sardine undergoes dramatic multi-decade population cycles and forms one of the largest single-species biomasses in the northwest Pacific.
pelagic
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.
pelagic
Spotted Wolffish
A large, deep-water wolffish covered in bold dark spots, found in cold Arctic and North Atlantic waters on rocky and gravel seafloor.
deepsea
Silver Mono
The plain, uniformly silver adult form of the mono, a coin-shaped estuarine fish that loses its faint juvenile eye-bar as it matures. Common in schools around Indo-Pacific mangroves, jetties, and harbors.
brackish
Mudskipper
An amphibious goby that spends much of its life out of water, hopping across mudflats on muscular pectoral fins. Bulging, periscope-like eyes let it watch for predators while it hunts and defends its burrow.
brackishGuppy
A small livebearing fish native to northeastern South America, famous for the males' vividly colored, ornately shaped tails and its worldwide popularity in the aquarium hobby.
freshwater
Bumblebee Goby
The Bumblebee Goby is a tiny, boldly banded fish resembling its namesake insect, found in brackish mangrove and estuarine waters of Southeast Asia.
brackish
Clownfish
A small, brilliantly orange reef fish with three white bars, famous for its symbiotic partnership with sea anemones on Indo-Pacific coral reefs.
reef
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
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
Arowana
The arowana is a large, ancient freshwater fish of the Amazon basin, genus Osteoglossum, known for its upturned mouth, long fins, and ability to leap for surface prey.
freshwaterIndian 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
Telescopefish
A slender deep-sea fish named for its forward-directed, tubular telescoping eyes, which provide sharp binocular vision to detect faint prey silhouettes in near-total darkness.
deepsea
Silver Arowana
A large, elongated freshwater fish with metallic silver scales and an upturned mouth, famous for leaping from the water surface to snatch insects and small prey.
freshwater
Narrow-barred Spanish Mackerel
A large, fast-swimming mackerel of the Indo-Pacific marked by numerous narrow, wavy dark bars running down its silvery sides.
pelagic
Midas Blenny
An elongated, brightly colored blenny that ranges from golden-yellow to blue-violet and often mimics the appearance and swimming style of similarly colored basslets. It hovers near reef crevices along drop-offs.
reef
Meagre
The Meagre is a large, golden-silver sciaenid of the eastern Atlantic and Mediterranean, among the biggest members of the drum family.
saltwater
Margined Flyingfish
A large flyingfish with dark, blue-margined wing-like pectoral fins that glides across open tropical and subtropical seas.
pelagic
Midas Cichlid
A large, variably colored Central American cichlid, ranging from mottled gray to solid gold-orange, known for its bold and often combative nature.
freshwater