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.
Ribbon Halfbeak
An extraordinarily thin, ribbon-shaped halfbeak of the open ocean, with a long needle-like lower jaw and greatly elongated fins that let it skitter and glide across the surface.
pelagic
Pacific Hagfish
The Pacific hagfish is a jawless, eel-shaped deep-sea scavenger of the eastern Pacific known for releasing thick defensive slime and for feeding on carcasses on the ocean floor.
deepsea
Queen Triggerfish
The Queen Triggerfish is a strikingly colorful Atlantic reef fish, marked by blue facial lines, a yellow-tinged tail, and elongated dorsal and tail fin filaments.
reef
Rainbow Parrotfish
The largest parrotfish in the Caribbean, displaying a striking blend of blue-green and orange coloration and playing a key role in reef sand production and algae control.
reef
Ohio Lamprey
The Ohio lamprey is a parasitic, jawless fish native to medium and large rivers of the eastern United States, attaching to host fish with a toothed sucking disc to feed.
freshwater
Platy
A small, compact livebearer native to Mexico and Central America, the platy is prized for its bright colors, peaceful nature, and ease of breeding in home aquariums.
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
Paradise Fish
A hardy East Asian labyrinth fish with vivid blue-and-red banded flanks and flowing fins, historically one of the first ornamental fish kept in Western aquariums.
freshwater
Pelican Eel
A deep-sea fish named for its enormous pelican-like pouch of a mouth, which it can expand to engulf prey and water, then slowly expel excess water while retaining any captured prey.
deepsea
Malabar Grouper
The Malabar grouper is a large, olive-grey Indo-Pacific grouper covered in dark blotches and small pale spots, found across coastal reefs, estuaries, and mangrove-lined coasts.
reef
Mangrove Snapper
A grayish snapper common along mangrove shorelines and estuaries of the western Atlantic, showing a faint dark stripe through the eye and a pointed, angular head.
brackish
Longtooth Grouper
A large brownish grouper found from southern Japan to the South China Sea, mottled with faint darker blotches and named for its prominent elongated canine teeth.
reef
Napoleon Wrasse
A massive, thick-lipped coral reef wrasse with a distinctive bulging forehead hump and blue-green maze-like facial markings, among the largest reef fish in the Indo-Pacific.
reef
Lesser Amberjack
A small, deep-dwelling jack of the western Atlantic, distinguished from its larger amberjack relatives by its modest size and life around offshore reefs and wrecks.
saltwater
Ling
The ling is a long, eel-shaped member of the cod family found on deep rocky reefs of the northeastern Atlantic, distinguished by its elongated fins and single chin barbel.
saltwater
Orangespine Unicornfish
A hornless unicornfish marked by a black eye mask, yellow dorsal stripe, and vivid orange blade-like spines at the tail base; common on shallow Indo-Pacific reefs.
reef
Megrim
A slender, left-eyed flatfish of the Northeast Atlantic and Mediterranean, valued commercially and recognizable by its thin, elongated body and large mouth.
saltwater
Halfbeak
The common name for slender, surface-swimming fish of the family Hemiramphidae, marked by a short upper jaw and a long, needle-like lower jaw; the Common Halfbeak represents the group.
saltwater
Greenland Cod
The Greenland cod is a stocky, cold-adapted cod relative found in shallow coastal Arctic waters around Greenland and eastern Canada, distinguished by its deep body and short head.
saltwater
Lemon Sole
A thick-bodied northeastern Atlantic flatfish with smooth, slippery, mottled reddish-brown skin, a small mouth, and a preference for firm sand or gravel seabeds.
saltwater
Humphead Wrasse
A massive, long-lived Indo-Pacific reef wrasse known for the prominent bulging hump on its forehead and its role as one of the few predators of toxic crown-of-thorns starfish.
reef
Hammerhead Shark
A shark instantly recognizable by its flattened, laterally extended hammer-shaped head, often seen in large daytime schools near seamounts and coastal areas.
cartilaginous
Japanese Amberjack
The Japanese Amberjack, or yellowtail, is a streamlined pelagic jack from the northwestern Pacific, identified by its bright yellow lateral stripe and yellow-tinged fins.
pelagic
Goldsinny Wrasse
A small reddish-brown wrasse marked by a black tail-base spot, the Goldsinny Wrasse patrols rocky Atlantic reefs and is known for picking parasites off other fish.
saltwater