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
Rummynose Tetra
A slender silvery tetra known for its bright red-orange snout and a bold black-and-white striped tail, prized for tight, synchronized shoaling.
freshwater
Bigeye Trevally
A large, silvery-to-black reef jack famous for forming massive, swirling daytime schools around Indo-Pacific reef passes and drop-offs.
reef
Spotted Seatrout
A slender estuarine predator of the southeastern United States, recognized by the bold black spots scattered across its silvery back and dorsal fin.
brackish
Crevalle Jack
A powerfully built, silvery jack with a steep forehead and a black spot on its gill cover, common along coastal and estuarine waters of the Atlantic.
pelagic
Common Roach
A widespread European freshwater fish with a silvery body and distinctive red-orange fins, forming large shoals in slow rivers, lakes, and canals.
freshwater
Bigeye Scad Sardine
Often mistaken for a true sardine because of its silvery, schooling habits, the bigeye scad is actually a jack recognizable by its unusually large eyes.
pelagic
Yoyo Loach
A patterned South Asian loach whose silvery body is marked with dark lines that form Y- and X-shaped patterns, giving rise to its common name.
freshwater
Crocodile Needlefish
One of the largest needlefish, with a massive, tooth-filled snout and a slender silvery body; a powerful surface predator of tropical and subtropical seas worldwide.
pelagic
Yellowfin Croaker
A silvery drum common in Pacific surf zones, recognized by faint diagonal lines along its flanks and yellow-tinted fins.
saltwater
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
Deep-sea Smelt
A small, silvery-bodied deep-sea fish that drifts through the dark midwater zone feeding on tiny plankton, forming a key link in deep ocean food webs.
deepsea
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
Bloodfin Tetra
A slim silvery tetra with bright red fins, prized as a hardy, active schooling fish that tolerates cooler water than most tropicals.
freshwaterWhite Croaker
The White Croaker is a pale, silvery-brassy sciaenid common in shallow Pacific coastal waters from British Columbia to Baja California.
saltwater
Blackbarred Halfbeak
A silvery halfbeak marked with faint dark vertical bars, common over seagrass beds and reef flats across the Indo-Pacific.
reef
Reef Needlefish
A long, slender, silvery needlefish with elongated toothy jaws, commonly seen cruising just below the surface over Indo-Pacific coral reefs and reef flats.
reef
Cero Mackerel
A slender, fast-swimming mackerel of Caribbean and western Atlantic waters, identified by a bronze-yellow stripe and rows of yellow-orange spots along its silvery sides.
pelagicCalifornia Flyingfish
The largest flyingfish species in the eastern Pacific, this stout, silvery glider uses its oversized wing-like fins to skim above the waves off California and Mexico.
pelagic
Bleak
A small, slender, silvery cyprinid, the bleak forms huge surface shoals in rivers and lakes, snapping at insects and once prized for its scales used in imitation pearls.
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
Atlantic Croaker
The Atlantic Croaker is a silvery-bronze estuarine fish with a single chin barbel and faint wavy mottling, abundant along the western Atlantic coast.
brackish
White Seabass
The White Seabass is a large Pacific coast drum with a bluish-bronze back and silvery sides, closely associated with California's kelp forests.
saltwater
Mexican Tetra
A resilient silvery tetra native to Texas and Mexico, renowned for cave populations that lost their eyes and pigment through evolution in total darkness.
freshwater