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.
Silver Mono
The plain, uniformly silver adult form of the mono, a coin-shaped estuarine fish that loses its faint juvenile eye-bar as it matures. Common in schools around Indo-Pacific mangroves, jetties, and harbors.
brackish
Gulf Pipefish
The Gulf pipefish is a small, slender pipefish common in seagrass beds and estuaries around the Gulf of Mexico and southeastern United States, notable for tolerating salinities ranging from full seawater to nearly fresh water.
brackish
Yellow Tang
A brilliant all-yellow surgeonfish common on Pacific coral reefs, especially around Hawaii, easily recognized by its disc-shaped body and sharp tail spine.
reef
Topsmelt
A slender, silvery schooling fish common in bays, estuaries, and kelp beds along the eastern Pacific coast, often seen shoaling near the surface in large numbers.
saltwater
Rock Cod
Rock cod is a common name for numerous Sebastes rockfish species found on rocky Pacific reefs, identified by their deep, spiny-finned body and mottled camouflage coloration.
saltwater
Ocellate River Stingray
A striking South American freshwater stingray with bold eyespot-like rings across its disc, common in the Amazon and Paraná river basins and popular in the aquarium trade.
freshwater
Hardyhead Silverside
A robust, silvery schooling fish common in shallow lagoons and reef flats across the Indo-Pacific, identified by its broad head and prominent silver midline stripe.
saltwater
Chain Pickerel
A slender, elongated ambush predator with a distinctive dark chain-like pattern over green sides, common in weedy lakes and sluggish rivers of the eastern United States.
freshwaterBigfin Squid Fish
Despite the common name, this is not a true fish but a rarely filmed deep-sea cephalopod, famous for extraordinarily long elbowed arms trailing beneath a small gelatinous body.
deepsea
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
American Gizzard Shad
A deep-bodied, blunt-snouted herring relative common in lakes and rivers across eastern and central North America, the American Gizzard Shad is a highly abundant forage fish named for its muscular, gizzard-like stomach.
freshwater
White Bass
A deep-bodied, silvery schooling bass with faint horizontal stripes, common in large freshwater lakes and rivers of the central United States, known for its spring spawning runs.
freshwater
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
Sweetlips
Sweetlips is the common name for boldly striped reef fish of the genus Plectorhinchus, exemplified by the Oriental sweetlips, known for thick fleshy lips and dramatic juvenile-to-adult color change.
reef
Snapper
A robust, reef-dwelling fish with a reddish-pink body and striking red eyes, common over rocky bottoms, reefs, and wrecks throughout the Gulf of Mexico and western Atlantic.
reef
Schoolmaster Snapper
The schoolmaster snapper is a yellow-tinged reef snapper of the western Atlantic, recognized by faint pale bars and a blue line beneath the eye, common around reefs, mangroves, and seagrass.
reef
Ringtail Surgeonfish
A blue-grey Indo-Pacific tang identified by the narrow white ring encircling its tail base; common on coral and rocky reefs from East Africa to Hawaii.
reef
Redlip Blenny
A dark, elongated blenny with a distinctive bright red-orange lip, common on shallow Caribbean and western Atlantic reef edges where it grazes algae from rock and coral.
reef
Needlefish
The common name for slender, surface-dwelling fish of the family Belonidae, recognized by long jaws lined with sharp teeth; the Needlefish (*Strongylura marina*) represents this widespread predatory group.
saltwater
Longhorn Sculpin
A large, spiny-headed sculpin common on sandy and rocky seafloors along the northwest Atlantic coast, easily recognized by its oversized head and fan-like pectoral fins.
saltwater
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
Gizzard Shad
A deep-bodied, silvery freshwater fish easily recognized by its blunt, rounded snout and long, whip-like filament trailing from the last dorsal fin ray, common in rivers, lakes, and reservoirs across North America.
freshwater
Summer Flounder
The summer flounder, also called fluke, is a left-eyed flatfish common along the US Atlantic coast, prized as a popular sport fish and known for its mottled camouflage pattern.
saltwater
Rock Wrasse
A common temperate wrasse of California and Baja kelp forests, recognized by its elongated olive-green body, salmon-pink belly, and a dark saddle-like blotch near the tail.
saltwater