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.
Little Tunny
A speedy, hard-fighting mackerel relative marked by distinctive wavy dark markings on its back, found in warm coastal and offshore waters of the Atlantic and Mediterranean.
pelagic
Gafftopsail Catfish
A silvery Atlantic sea catfish named for the tall, sail-like extension of its first dorsal fin ray and long trailing pectoral fin filaments.
saltwater
Gag Grouper
The gag grouper is an elongated, grey-brown grouper of the western Atlantic recognized by its faint worm-like markings and slender build compared to other groupers.
reef
Eagle Ray
A diamond-shaped ray with a distinctive protruding duck-like snout, often seen gliding gracefully near the seafloor in coastal waters of the eastern Atlantic and Mediterranean.
cartilaginous
Windowpane Flounder
An almost circular, paper-thin Atlantic coast flatfish so translucent that light passes through its body, with light brown mottled coloring and widely spaced eyes.
saltwater
Smalltooth Sawfish
A Critically Endangered ray-relative with a long, tooth-lined saw-like snout, once common in warm western Atlantic coastal waters but now greatly reduced in range.
cartilaginousSpotted Moray
A pale, leopard-patterned eel of Caribbean and western Atlantic reefs, its cream body densely covered in dark brown blotches that give it a mottled, sponge-like appearance.
reef
Spotted Scorpionfish
A heavily camouflaged reef fish with mottled brown, red, and white patterning and venomous dorsal spines, blending seamlessly into coral rubble and rocky bottom across the western Atlantic.
reef
Red Grouper
The red grouper is a heavy-bodied, reddish-brown reef fish common on rocky and coral bottoms of the Gulf of Mexico and western Atlantic, known for excavating shallow depressions in sediment.
reef
Redbanded Seabream
The redbanded seabream is a deep-bodied, pinkish-red sparid marked by four to five dark vertical bands, found over rocky and sandy bottoms in the eastern Atlantic and Mediterranean.
saltwater
Pacific Red Snapper
A bright reddish-pink snapper of rocky reefs along the Eastern Pacific coast from Mexico to Peru, closely resembling its Atlantic namesake but found in a different ocean.
reef
Mummichog
A stout, hardy killifish common in salt marshes and estuaries along the North American Atlantic coast, well known for its extreme tolerance of changing salinity and oxygen levels.
brackish
Greenland Halibut
A cold-water, deep-sea North Atlantic and Arctic flatfish with a dark body on both sides, a large toothy mouth, and a less flattened posture than typical flounders.
deepsea
Goldsinny Wrasse
A small reddish-brown wrasse marked by a black tail-base spot, the Goldsinny Wrasse patrols rocky Atlantic reefs and is known for picking parasites off other fish.
saltwater
Graysby
The graysby is a small, reddish-brown reef grouper of the tropical western Atlantic, densely covered in pale spots and marked with a few larger dark blotches along its back.
reef
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.
reefRock Gunnel
A slender, eel-like intertidal fish of the North Atlantic, the Rock Gunnel hides under rocks and seaweed and is marked by a row of pale-ringed spots along its dorsal fin.
saltwater
Eastern Mosquitofish
Native to the Atlantic coastal plain of the eastern United States, the eastern mosquitofish is nearly identical to its western relative and has likewise been widely introduced worldwide for mosquito control.
freshwater
Cubera Snapper
The largest snapper in the Atlantic, a heavy-bodied reef predator with oversized canine teeth. Adults hold near deep ledges and wrecks, while juveniles grow up in mangrove nurseries.
reef
Coney
The coney is a small, color-variable reef grouper of the tropical western Atlantic, occurring in reddish-brown, bicolor, or bright golden-yellow forms, always marked with fine blue spotting.
reef
Black Sea Bass
A stocky, dark-bodied grouper relative common on rocky reefs and wrecks along the temperate western Atlantic coast, easily recognized by its high arched back and blunt head.
reef
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
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
Baltic Herring
A smaller, brackish-water subspecies of the Atlantic Herring, the Baltic Herring is adapted to the low-salinity Baltic Sea and forms one of the region's most abundant and ecologically important schooling fish.
brackish