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.
Bagre Catfish
A silvery marine and estuarine catfish of the western Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico, recognizable by its elongated sail-like dorsal fin filament and mouth-brooding parenting behavior.
saltwater
Wolf Herring
A slender, silvery predator with a fanged, upturned jaw, the wolf herring hunts small fish in Indo-Pacific coastal waters despite belonging to the herring order.
saltwater
Atlantic Saury
A slender, silvery, beaked fish of the open North Atlantic, closely related to needlefish, recognized by its elongated jaws and a row of small finlets near the tail.
pelagicWhitefish
Lake whitefish are silvery, streamlined members of the salmon family that inhabit cold, deep lakes across North America, feeding along the bottom for insect larvae and small invertebrates.
freshwater
Rainbow Trout
A popular salmonid native to Pacific-drainage rivers of North America and Asia, known for its silvery body, dark spotting, and the broad pink-red stripe that gives the species its name.
freshwater
Snook
A sleek, silvery predator with a bold black lateral stripe and a distinctive sloped, pointed snout, closely tied to mangrove shorelines and warm coastal estuaries.
brackish
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.
pelagicNorway 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
Sheepshead Bream
The sheepshead bream, or white seabream, is a silvery sparid marked by dark vertical bars and a black tail-base spot, common over rocky reefs and seagrass in the Mediterranean and eastern Atlantic.
reef
Murray River Rainbowfish
A slender, schooling rainbowfish native to Australia's Murray-Darling river system, displaying subtle pink-red stripes and yellow-tinted fins along its silvery-blue body.
freshwater
Ide
A robust, silvery cyprinid of large European rivers and lakes, the ide (commonly bred as the golden 'orfe') forms active surface shoals and is a widely stocked ornamental pond fish worldwide.
freshwater
Blue Whiting
Blue whiting is a slender, silvery-blue deep-water relative of cod that forms enormous schools across the northeastern Atlantic, distinguished by its large eyes and lack of a chin barbel.
pelagic
Scaled Sardine
A small, deep-bodied silvery fish that forms dense inshore schools along the Western Atlantic coast, easily confused with other small herring-like species.
saltwater
Copperband Butterflyfish
The Copperband Butterflyfish has a silvery-white body banded in copper-orange and a long, slender snout used to probe crevices, along with a black eyespot near the tail that helps confuse predators.
reef
Cottonmouth Jack
A plain, silvery-grey deep-water jack named for the pale interior of its mouth, found over continental shelves and slopes across tropical oceans worldwide.
pelagic
Common Dace
A slender, silvery cyprinid of clean, fast-flowing rivers, the common dace forms active shoals in mid-water, darting to snatch drifting insects from the current.
freshwater
Black Neon Tetra
A small Brazilian tetra marked by a bold black horizontal stripe paired with a shimmering silvery-white line above it, a popular schooling fish in freshwater aquariums.
freshwater
Atlantic Flyingfish
A streamlined, silvery flyingfish of the tropical Atlantic that uses its oversized wing-like pectoral fins to glide over the surface for long distances to escape predators.
pelagic
Targetfish
A silvery, deep-bodied fish marked with three or four bold, curving dark stripes running from head to tail, common in brackish estuaries across the Indo-Pacific.
brackish
Blue Catfish
North America's largest catfish species, silvery-blue to slate gray with a deeply forked tail, native to the Mississippi basin and now established as an invasive predator in several Atlantic drainages.
freshwater
Banded Killifish
A slender, silvery killifish common in vegetated lakes and slow streams of eastern North America, marked with numerous thin dark vertical bars along its flanks.
freshwater
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
Blueback Herring
A slender, silvery anadromous herring closely related to the Alewife, distinguished by its deep blue-green back, that migrates from Atlantic coastal waters into freshwater rivers each spring to spawn.
brackish
Lane Snapper
A small, silvery-pink schooling snapper marked by faint yellow stripes and a black spot near the tail base, common across shallow Western Atlantic reefs and seagrass.
reef