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.
Bull Shark
A stocky, grey shark famous for its extreme tolerance of fresh and brackish water, allowing it to travel far up rivers and live in freshwater lakes far from the ocean.
cartilaginous
Far Eastern Brook Lamprey
A small, jawless, non-parasitic lamprey native to clear freshwater streams across Japan, Korea, and mainland East Asia, spending most of its life as a burrowing larva before a brief non-feeding adult stage.
freshwater
Swamp Eel
A limbless, scaleless, snake-like eel that burrows through mud in freshwater and brackish swamps of South and Southeast Asia and can survive in poorly oxygenated water using accessory air breathing.
brackish
Alewife
A small, silvery anadromous herring native to the Atlantic coast of North America, recognizable by a single dark shoulder spot, that migrates from the ocean into freshwater rivers and lakes each spring to spawn.
brackish
European Brook Lamprey
The European brook lamprey is a small, non-parasitic freshwater lamprey found across Europe, closely related to the river lamprey but spending its entire life cycle in streams and never feeding as an adult.
freshwater
American Brook Lamprey
The American brook lamprey is a small, non-parasitic freshwater lamprey found in clean streams across eastern North America, closely related to the Arctic lamprey but never feeding once it reaches adulthood.
freshwater
Chinese High-Fin Banded Shark
Despite its name, the Chinese High-Fin Banded Shark is not a shark at all but a large freshwater sucker native to China's Yangtze River basin, known for its tall sail-like dorsal fin.
freshwater
Tomcod
The Atlantic tomcod is a small, estuarine member of the cod family found along the northwestern Atlantic coast, notable for tolerating brackish and nearly fresh water unlike most of its relatives.
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
Neon Goby
A tiny reef fish with an electric blue stripe running nose to tail, best known for cleaning parasites off larger reef fish.
reef
Ohio Lamprey
The Ohio lamprey is a parasitic, jawless fish native to medium and large rivers of the eastern United States, attaching to host fish with a toothed sucking disc to feed.
freshwater
Barreleye
The barreleye, or spookfish, is a deep-sea fish with a transparent, dome-shaped head revealing barrel-shaped, upward-rotating tubular eyes, unlike any other fish.
deepseaAtlantic Herring
A slender, silvery schooling fish that forms some of the largest shoals in the North Atlantic, feeding on plankton and serving as a key forage species for larger fish, seabirds, and marine mammals.
pelagic
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
Fangtooth
The fangtooth is a small, deep-sea fish with the largest teeth relative to body size of any fish, identified by its oversized fangs, armored head, and compact dark body.
deepseaCusk 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
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.
saltwaterTiger Muskie
A hybrid of northern pike and muskellunge, this elongated apex predator sports bold dark tiger stripes and is prized as one of freshwater's most aggressive game fish.
freshwater