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.
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
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
Banded Knifefish
An elongated, eel-like South American fish that generates weak electric fields to navigate and communicate in murky water.
freshwater
Common Archerfish
A deep-bodied, silvery fish famed for spitting jets of water to knock insects off overhanging vegetation into the water.
brackish
Pike Livebearer
A large, elongated predatory livebearer from Central America with a pike-like head and mouth built for ambushing small fish.
freshwater
Pajama Cardinalfish
A small, egg-shaped reef fish with a yellow-striped head and red-spotted rear body, resembling patterned sleepwear.
reef
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
Ballan Wrasse
The largest wrasse in northern European waters, a stout rocky-reef fish with highly variable green, brown, or reddish mottling.
saltwater
White Grunt
A stout, silvery reef fish with a bright orange-red mouth lining, known for the grinding sound it makes with its pharyngeal teeth.
reef
Stone Loach
The Stone Loach is a small, mottled bottom-dwelling fish common in clear European streams, often hiding under stones by day.
freshwater
Pygmy Corydoras
The Pygmy Corydoras is one of the smallest armored catfish species, a tiny schooling fish native to slow-moving tributaries of the Amazon basin.
freshwater
Pacific Blue-eye
A tiny, schooling fish common in coastal streams and estuaries of eastern Australia, easily recognized by its reflective, luminous blue eyes.
brackish