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.
Southern Platyfish
The full common name for the widely kept platy, the southern platyfish is a small, hardy livebearer native to Mexico, Belize, and Guatemala, prized for its color variety and easy breeding.
freshwater
Tomcod
The Atlantic tomcod is a small, estuarine member of the cod family found along the northwestern Atlantic coast, notable for tolerating brackish and nearly fresh water unlike most of its relatives.
brackish
Spotted Bass
A compact black bass species with rows of small dark spots below the lateral line, native to the Mississippi and Gulf drainages and often found alongside Largemouth and Smallmouth Bass.
freshwater
Twaite Shad
A slender anadromous herring relative found along European and North African coasts, the Twaite Shad migrates into estuaries and rivers to spawn and is distinguished from the Allis Shad by its row of dark flank spots.
brackish
Spotted Scat
A deep-bodied, disc-shaped fish covered in dark spots over an olive-to-silver background, common in Indo-Pacific estuaries and harbors. Its bold pattern and spiny dorsal fin make it easy to pick out among schooling brackish fish.
brackish
Ukrainian Brook Lamprey
The Ukrainian brook lamprey is a small, non-parasitic jawless fish that lives its entire life in freshwater streams of Eastern Europe, feeding only during a long larval stage.
freshwater
Star Puffer
One of the largest pufferfish species, the star puffer is covered edge-to-edge in small black spots and roams Indo-Pacific reefs and lagoons feeding on sponges, tunicates, and hard-shelled prey.
reef
Undulated Moray
A common Indo-Pacific reef moray with bold wavy, maze-like dark markings over a pale body, often seen with its head poking from reef crevices.
reef
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
Viperfish
The viperfish is a deep-sea predator famous for its oversized, needle-like fangs and a light-tipped dorsal fin ray used as a lure in the dark mesopelagic zone.
deepsea
Stoplight Loosejaw
A deep-sea dragonfish with a hinge-less lower jaw and a rare ability to emit and see red bioluminescent light, invisible to most other deep-sea animals, effectively a private searchlight.
deepsea
Valentini Puffer
The Valentini Puffer is a small reef puffer marked by two bold black saddle patches on a white-and-tan body, a pattern also mimicked by an unrelated filefish.
reef
Silver Tip Tetra
A bronze-bodied Brazilian characin notable for lacking an adipose fin and for its bright white-tipped fins, active in fast-moving shoals.
freshwater
Undulate Ray
A patterned skate marked with wavy dark bands across its back, found on sandy and rocky bottoms from the English Channel to the Mediterranean and West Africa.
cartilaginous
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
Variable Platyfish
A close relative of the common platy, the variable platyfish is native to northeastern Mexico and shows exceptional natural variation in color and pattern, giving rise to many popular aquarium strains.
freshwater
Silver Perch
The Silver Perch is a small, bright silvery sciaenid common in seagrass and oyster reef habitats along the U.S. Atlantic and Gulf coasts.
brackish
Tiger Rockfish
A brightly patterned rockfish with bold dark vertical bars across a pink to reddish body, resembling its namesake big cat and typically found in deeper rocky reef crevices.
saltwater
Sockeye Salmon
A Pacific salmon renowned for its brilliant crimson spawning coloration and strong dependence on lake habitat during its freshwater juvenile stage.
freshwater
Tautog
A large, robust, dark-mottled wrasse tied closely to rocky reefs and wrecks along the western Atlantic coast, known for its powerful shellfish-crushing jaws.
saltwater
Silver Dollar
A disc-shaped, silvery Amazonian characin closely related to piranhas but almost entirely herbivorous, known for grazing flooded forest vegetation.
freshwater
Thornback Ray
A common European skate covered in distinctive rows of sharp thorny spines, found on sandy and muddy seabeds from shallow water to the continental shelf.
cartilaginous
Sparkling Gourami
A tiny, jewel-like Southeast Asian gourami covered in iridescent blue-green spangling and reddish stripes, small enough to be one of the smallest gouramis kept in aquariums.
freshwaterTench
A robust, olive-green European fish with a thick, slimy skin and tiny scales, favoring weedy, still waters and long valued by anglers and pond keepers alike.
freshwater
Star Drum
One of the smallest drums in the western Atlantic, an elongated silvery fish often found in dense schools over soft coastal bottoms.
saltwater
Timor Halfbeak
A small, slender halfbeak of the genus Zenarchopterus with a needle-thin lower jaw, common in the brackish estuaries and coastal rivers of the Indo-Pacific near Timor and Southeast Asia.
brackish
Starry Flounder
The starry flounder is a distinctive North Pacific flatfish recognized by alternating orange and black bands across its fins and rough, star-shaped scales, and notable for tolerating a wide range of salinities.
brackish
Suckermouth Catfish
A heavily armored South American catfish with a disc-shaped sucking mouth used to graze algae from rocks and wood, one of the most familiar aquarium fish worldwide.
freshwater
Splash Tetra
A small South American tetra famous for its extraordinary reproductive behavior of leaping out of water in pairs to lay eggs on overhanging leaves.
freshwater
Three-Spot Domino Damselfish
A round, jet-black damselfish marked with three white spots, commonly seen sheltering among sea anemones and branching corals on Indo-Pacific reefs.
reef
Spotted Seahorse
The spotted seahorse, also called the yellow seahorse, is a widespread Indo-Pacific species with a smooth body, low coronet, and highly variable coloring that ranges from plain yellow to dark blotched patterns.
reef
Threadfin Rainbowfish
A tiny, delicate rainbowfish famed for the male's elongated, thread-like extensions on the dorsal and anal fins that trail behind the body.
freshwater
Staghorn Sculpin
A common bottom-dwelling sculpin of Pacific coast bays and estuaries, named for the large branching (antler-like) spine on its gill cover.
brackish
Tarpon
A giant, silver-scaled fish known as the 'Silver King,' famous for its acrobatic leaps and its ability to gulp air at the surface in low-oxygen coastal waters.
brackish
Southern Bluefin Tuna
A large, deep-bodied tuna of the Southern Hemisphere's open oceans, distinguished by very short pectoral fins and a single spawning ground south of Indonesia.
pelagicTadpole Cod
The tadpole cod is a tiny, translucent Gadiform fish named for its tadpole-like shape, found in warm surface waters worldwide and distinguished by its thread-like forward pelvic fins.
pelagic
Spanish Hogfish
A colorful western-Atlantic wrasse with a purple-blue upper front and yellow rear, and a well-known juvenile cleaning habit.
reef
Swordtail
Named for the elongated, sword-like extension on the male's tail fin, this energetic livebearer from Mexico and Central America is a long-standing favorite in freshwater aquariums.
freshwater
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
Striped Marlin
A swift, streamlined billfish famous for its tall, sail-like blue dorsal fin and rows of pale vertical stripes, ranging widely through the Pacific and Indian Oceans as a top offshore predator.
pelagic
Snowy Grouper
A dark gray-brown deepwater grouper of the western Atlantic; juveniles are boldly marked with white spots that fade to a plainer, darker pattern in large adults.
deepsea
Striped Panchax
A larger South Asian killifish, also called the golden wonder killifish, marked by bold dark horizontal stripes on a golden-olive body. It hunts insects near the surface of ponds and rice paddies.
freshwater
Shortnose Sturgeon
The shortnose sturgeon is a small, endangered anadromous fish of eastern North America, distinguished from its larger Atlantic sturgeon relative by a shorter, blunter snout.
brackish
Swordfish
A large, powerful open-ocean predator identified by its long, flat sword-like bill, capable of deep dives and high-speed pursuit of prey.
pelagic
Slender Tuna
The slender tuna is a slim-bodied, planktivorous tuna of cool temperate southern seas, distinguished from other tunas by its narrow build and diet of small crustaceans.
pelagic
Vermilion Rockfish
A vivid orange-red rockfish of Pacific coast reefs, often called 'red snapper' informally by anglers despite being unrelated to true snappers.
saltwater
Sixline Soapfish
A dark brown-black Indo-Pacific reef fish marked with six pale horizontal stripes, known for secreting a bitter, toxic skin mucus as a defense mechanism.
reefSplake
Splake are a fertile hybrid char produced by crossing brook trout and lake trout, combining the fast growth of brook trout with the longevity and deep-water habits of lake trout.
freshwater