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 Eel
The Ribbon Eel is a slender, brightly colored moray that changes from a black juvenile to a blue male to a yellow female over its lifetime while anchored in a sand burrow.
reefBluntnose Flyingfish
A small flyingfish with a short, blunt snout and large wing-like pectoral fins, gliding above the open tropical Atlantic.
pelagicSlickhead
A dark, soft-bodied deep-sea fish named for its smooth, scaleless head, drifting slowly along cold continental slopes far beyond the reach of sunlight.
deepsea
Emperor Killifish
Emperor Killifish is an alternate name for the Blue Gularis, one of the largest and most dramatically finned West African killifish, with males sporting an elongated lyre-shaped tail.
freshwater
Whitetail Surgeonfish
A slender, dark-bodied tang with a strikingly pale, forked tail, often seen hovering in groups over Indo-Pacific reef drop-offs to feed on drifting zooplankton.
reef
Forktail Rainbowfish
A tiny, colorful blue-eye rainbowfish from New Guinea named for its distinctively forked, yellow-edged tail fin.
freshwater
Emperor Tetra
A refined, violet-blue tetra from Colombia known for a bold black lateral stripe and males' elongated, sword-like central tail rays.
freshwater
Jardini Arowana
A large, metallic-scaled arowana from northern Australia and New Guinea, known for its bronze-green body and upward-facing mouth built for surface feeding.
freshwater
White Perch
A silvery, deep-bodied temperate bass rather than a true perch, common in brackish estuaries and coastal rivers of eastern North America.
brackish
Longtail Tuna
A coastal tuna of the Indo-West Pacific with a notably slender, elongated body and a long, low second dorsal fin, often found closer to shore than other tunas.
pelagic
African Sharptooth Catfish
A hardy, air-breathing catfish native to Africa and the Middle East, capable of surviving in low-oxygen water and even moving briefly over land, now widely farmed and invasive elsewhere.
freshwater
Palon Killifish
A small East African annual killifish in the genus Nothobranchius, with males displaying coppery orange-red coloring and blue speckling. It inhabits temporary coastal pools tied to seasonal rains.
freshwater
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
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
Ocellaris Clownfish
A small orange-and-white clownfish that lives in a mutualistic partnership with sea anemones on Indo-Pacific reefs. It is one of the most familiar reef fish species due to its bright coloring and anemone-dwelling behavior.
reef
Rachovi Killifish
A vividly colored annual killifish from coastal Mozambique, with males showing a turquoise body and a tricolor red-yellow-blue tail. It lives in temporary floodplain pools near Beira.
freshwater
Longnose Chimaera
A deep-water cartilaginous fish related to sharks, marked by an unmistakably long pointed snout and a slender tapering body cruising continental slopes far below sunlight.
cartilaginous
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.
brackishBlue Gularis
One of the largest African killifish, males display an elongated lyre-shaped tail and vivid blue-green body with red barring, native to Nigerian and Cameroonian wetlands.
freshwater
White Cloud Mountain Minnow
A hardy, cold-tolerant minnow with a metallic green-gold stripe and red-tinted fins, native to cool mountain streams in southern China.
freshwater
Chain Pickerel
A slender, elongated ambush predator with a distinctive dark chain-like pattern over green sides, common in weedy lakes and sluggish rivers of the eastern United States.
freshwater
Featherback Knifefish
A smaller, unspotted relative of the Clown Knifefish found across South and Southeast Asia, with a humped back and a single long fin running beneath its body.
freshwater
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
Pilotfish
A boldly barred open-ocean jack famous for closely trailing sharks and other large marine animals for shelter and feeding opportunities.
pelagic