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.
Nile Perch
A large, silvery-grey freshwater predator with a distinctive dark eye and deep body, native to major African river systems and infamous for its ecological impact after introduction to Lake Victoria.
freshwater
Mono
A shimmering, disc-shaped fish with a strongly flattened body and tall, angular fins, native to Indo-Pacific estuaries. Adults school in brackish coastal waters and shift gradually toward full seawater as they mature.
brackish
Glass Knifefish
A slender, near-transparent South American fish that swims using a continuous rippling fin and emits a weak electric field to sense its surroundings.
freshwater
Chinese Algae Eater
An elongated Southeast Asian freshwater fish with a specialized sucker mouth used to graze algae from rocks, becoming increasingly territorial as it matures.
freshwater
Chili Rasbora
One of the smallest cyprinids in the aquarium hobby, the Chili Rasbora is an intensely red nano fish native to Borneo's acidic blackwater swamps.
freshwater
Palette Surgeonfish
The vivid blue-and-black Blue Tang, famous for its palette-shaped markings and bright yellow tail; an Indo-Pacific coral reef species that feeds mainly on drifting plankton rather than algae.
reef
Texas Cichlid
The only cichlid native to the United States, this pearly, turquoise-spotted fish thrives in the rivers of Texas and northeastern Mexico.
freshwater
Celestial Pearl Danio
A tiny, jewel-like danio with a dark blue body covered in pearly spots and orange-red banded fins, discovered only in the mid-2000s in Myanmar.
freshwaterAnthias
A small, brightly colored basslet that forms large shimmering schools over reef drop-offs, feeding on drifting plankton.
reef
Molly
A hardy, adaptable livebearer native to Mexico and Central America, the common molly thrives in fresh, brackish, and even marine water and is one of the most popular beginner aquarium fish.
freshwater
Salmon
A large anadromous fish that hatches in freshwater rivers, migrates to the ocean to mature, and returns upriver to spawn, prized as an iconic sport fish.
freshwater
Neon Goby
A tiny reef fish with an electric blue stripe running nose to tail, best known for cleaning parasites off larger reef fish.
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
Barreleye
The barreleye, or spookfish, is a deep-sea fish with a transparent, dome-shaped head revealing barrel-shaped, upward-rotating tubular eyes, unlike any other fish.
deepsea
Alligator Gar
A massive, armor-scaled freshwater fish with a broad alligator-like snout lined with two rows of sharp teeth, among the largest freshwater fish in North America.
freshwaterAtlantic Herring
A slender, silvery schooling fish that forms some of the largest shoals in the North Atlantic, feeding on plankton and serving as a key forage species for larger fish, seabirds, and marine mammals.
pelagic
Alaska Pollock
An abundant, silvery schooling fish of the cold North Pacific and Bering Sea, closely related to Atlantic Cod and among the most numerous commercially significant fish in the world.
saltwater
Longnose Gar
A slender, torpedo-shaped freshwater fish with an extremely long, narrow, tooth-lined snout, easily recognized among North American fish by its needle-like jaws.
freshwater
Fangtooth
The fangtooth is a small, deep-sea fish with the largest teeth relative to body size of any fish, identified by its oversized fangs, armored head, and compact dark body.
deepseaCusk Eel
An elongated, eel-shaped deep-sea fish whose family holds the record for the deepest fish ever documented, recovered from a trench nearly 8,400 meters down.
deepsea
Cornetfish
An extremely elongated, needle-thin fish with a whip-like tail filament, the Cornetfish hovers near reefs and seagrass, using its long tubular snout to snap up small fish.
reefSnailfish
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
Peruvian Anchoveta
A small, slender schooling fish found in colossal numbers within the nutrient-rich Humboldt Current off Peru and Chile, considered one of the most abundant fish species on Earth.
pelagic
Largemouth Bass
A robust, olive-green freshwater fish with a distinctive dark lateral stripe and a very large mouth, one of North America's most popular sport fish now established worldwide.
freshwater