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.
Cusk 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
Cleaner Wrasse
The Cleaner Wrasse is a slender fish with a bold black horizontal stripe and blue body, famous for removing parasites and dead tissue from other reef fish at dedicated cleaning stations.
reef
Sea Lamprey
The sea lamprey is a primitive, jawless, eel-like fish famous for its parasitic sucker-disc mouth ringed with sharp teeth, which it uses to latch onto and feed on other fish.
saltwater
Honey Gourami
A small, peaceful South Asian labyrinth fish whose breeding males flush a warm honey-gold to orange color with a dark throat and belly, making it a popular gentle community fish.
freshwater
Atlantic Cod
A large, heavy-bodied bottom fish with a distinctive chin barbel and three dorsal fins, the Atlantic Cod is one of the North Atlantic's most historically significant and heavily studied fish species.
saltwater
Sturgeon
An ancient family of large, armored bony fish with bony scutes instead of scales and a shark-like barbeled snout. Sturgeon migrate between rivers and the sea to spawn and are among the most endangered fish groups.
brackish
Pacific Herring
A slender, silvery schooling fish closely related to the Atlantic Herring, found in cold coastal waters across the North Pacific, where it forms a critical forage base for fish, seabirds, and marine mammals.
pelagic
Senegal Bichir
An elongated, primitive-looking freshwater fish with a row of small spiny finlets along its back and paired lung-like breathing organs, retaining features from ancient ray-finned fish ancestors.
freshwater
Bluehead Wrasse
A small, abundant Caribbean reef fish famous for changing color and sex as it matures, with terminal males developing a striking blue head and green body. It is one of the most numerous fish on western Atlantic reefs.
reef
Japanese Anchovy
A small, abundant schooling fish found throughout the coastal waters of Japan, Korea, and China, the Japanese Anchovy is one of the most heavily fished species in the western Pacific and a vital link in regional marine food webs.
pelagic
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
Banded Knifefish
An elongated, eel-like South American fish that generates weak electric fields to navigate and communicate in murky water.
freshwater
Atlantic Salmon
An iconic anadromous fish of the North Atlantic, born in cold rivers, maturing at sea, and returning to natal streams to spawn.
freshwater
Common Archerfish
A deep-bodied, silvery fish famed for spitting jets of water to knock insects off overhanging vegetation into the water.
brackish
Pajama Cardinalfish
A small, egg-shaped reef fish with a yellow-striped head and red-spotted rear body, resembling patterned sleepwear.
reef
Pike Livebearer
A large, elongated predatory livebearer from Central America with a pike-like head and mouth built for ambushing small fish.
freshwater
Moorish Idol
An unmistakable disc-shaped reef fish with bold black-white-yellow bands and a dramatically long trailing dorsal fin.
reef
Torpedo Ray
The largest of the electric rays, a powerful bottom-dweller capable of delivering an electric shock strong enough to stun sizeable fish.
cartilaginous
Flame Hawkfish
A brilliant red-orange reef fish that perches motionless atop branching coral, darting out to ambush small prey.
reef
African Arowana
A large African bonytongue fish with a toothless, filter-feeding mouth adapted for straining plankton and detritus from floodplain waters.
freshwater