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.
Flowerhorn
A vividly colored, artificially bred cichlid hybrid famous for its bulbous head hump and bold markings, with no wild ancestral population.
freshwater
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.
brackishFreshwater Goby
A small stream-dwelling goby of East Asia, unusual among gobies for living its whole life cycle in fresh or amphidromous river systems.
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.
freshwaterCombtooth Blenny
A general term for the large blenny family Blenniidae, small scaleless fish named for the comb-like row of fine teeth many species use to graze algae.
saltwater
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.
reefFourwing Flyingfish
A true "four-winged" flyingfish with both enlarged pectoral and pelvic fins, allowing exceptionally long surface glides across the tropical Atlantic Ocean.
pelagic
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.
brackishYellowfin Rainbowfish
A slender rainbowfish endemic to Misool Island in Indonesia's West Papua region, named for its bright yellow unpaired fins that contrast with its silvery-olive body.
freshwater
Sockeye Salmon
A Pacific salmon renowned for its brilliant crimson spawning coloration and strong dependence on lake habitat during its freshwater juvenile stage.
freshwaterNaked Sole
A small, scaleless western Atlantic and Gulf sole with smooth skin, fine dark wavy crossbands, and a habit of burying in clean sand on the continental shelf.
saltwater
Silver Dollar
A disc-shaped, silvery Amazonian characin closely related to piranhas but almost entirely herbivorous, known for grazing flooded forest vegetation.
freshwaterNorway Pout
The Norway pout is a small, silvery schooling Gadidae abundant in the North Sea and nearby shelf waters, distinguished by its large eyes and slim body adapted to deeper offshore habitat.
saltwater
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
Trumpetfish
A long, tube-bodied ambush predator that hovers motionless among reef structures, often drifting vertically to mimic a stray branch or gorgonian coral before striking small fish.
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
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.
saltwaterSlickhead
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
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 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
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
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.
pelagicTench
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
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.
reef
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
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
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.
freshwaterSnailfish
A tadpole-shaped, scaleless fish family found from shallow tide pools to the deepest ocean trenches; hadal-zone species hold the record for the deepest fish ever observed.
deepsea
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.
reefShort-headed Lamprey
The short-headed lamprey is an anadromous, jawless fish of southeastern Australia and Tasmania, recognized by its notably short head and a marine parasitic phase before spawning in rivers.
brackish
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
Semicircle Angelfish
A large Indo-Pacific angelfish; adults are greenish-brown with blue-speckled fins and blue face lines.
reef
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
Schoolmaster Snapper
The schoolmaster snapper is a yellow-tinged reef snapper of the western Atlantic, recognized by faint pale bars and a blue line beneath the eye, common around reefs, mangroves, and seagrass.
reefTadpole 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
Sailfin Snapper
The sailfin snapper is a striking Indo-Pacific reef fish with blue diagonal stripes, yellow fins, and a tall, flowing dorsal fin, often seen over sand patches near coral reefs.
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
Red Lionfish
Instantly recognizable for its fan-like, striped fins and venomous spines, the red lionfish is a native Indo-Pacific reef predator that has become a damaging invasive species in the Western Atlantic.
reef
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
Spanish Mackerel
A slender, fast-swimming mackerel of the western Atlantic, easily identified by rows of bright yellow-gold spots scattered along its silvery flanks.
pelagic
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
Serpae Tetra
A vividly red-bodied tetra with a bold black shoulder patch, known for its assertive, nippy temperament within shoaling groups.
freshwater
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
Sheepshead
A deep-bodied coastal fish easily recognized by bold black vertical bars and prominent human-like teeth, common around docks, jetties, and oyster reefs along the western Atlantic.
saltwater
Snowflake Moray
The Snowflake Moray is a mottled black-and-yellow reef eel with blunt, crushing teeth adapted for feeding on crabs and shrimp rather than fish.
reef
Silver Bream
A silvery European freshwater fish with notably large, protruding eyes, often confused with young Common Bream but distinguished by its larger scales.
freshwater
Sohal Tang
A powerfully built surgeonfish endemic to the Red Sea and nearby Arabian waters, marked by bold blue and black striping and known for fiercely defending shallow reef flats.
reef
Sheepshead Minnow
A stocky, deep-bodied pupfish tolerant of extreme salinity swings, common in salt marshes and tidal creeks along the Atlantic and Gulf coasts of North America.
brackish