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.
Fathead Minnow
A small, hardy North American minnow famous as baitfish and a standard toxicology test species, able to survive low-oxygen, turbid water most fish avoid.
freshwater
Sheepshead Minnow
A stocky, deep-bodied pupfish tolerant of extreme salinity swings, common in salt marshes and tidal creeks along the Atlantic and Gulf coasts of North America.
brackishCommon Minnow
A small, active cyprinid of cool, clean streams, the common minnow forms dense shoals over gravel, and breeding males develop vivid red bellies and bright spawning colors.
freshwater
White Cloud Mountain Minnow
A hardy, cold-tolerant minnow with a metallic green-gold stripe and red-tinted fins, native to cool mountain streams in southern China.
freshwater
Brook Silverside
A slender, nearly translucent freshwater fish of eastern North American lakes and rivers, known for its needle-like beak and habit of skipping across the water's surface.
freshwater
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
Golden Topminnow
A small southeastern U.S. killifish whose males show golden-yellow coloring with iridescent blue-green spotting. It favors quiet, well-vegetated ponds, swamps, and slow backwaters.
freshwater
Least Killifish
One of the smallest vertebrates in North America, the least killifish is a tiny livebearer native to slow, vegetated wetlands of the southeastern United States despite its misleading name.
freshwater
Bay Anchovy
One of the most abundant fish in Atlantic and Gulf Coast estuaries, the tiny Bay Anchovy is a key forage species that tolerates a wide range of salinities from open bays to nearly fresh tidal creeks.
brackish
Golden Shiner
A slender, deep-bodied North American minnow with brassy golden-silver sides, the golden shiner is among the continent's most widely used baitfish, thriving in weedy ponds and slow-moving water.
freshwater
Siamese Algae Eater
A slim, torpedo-shaped Southeast Asian minnow relative well known among aquarium keepers for actively grazing on a wide range of algae types.
freshwater
Zebrafish
A small, striped South Asian minnow renowned worldwide as a key model organism for genetics and developmental biology research, alongside its popularity as an aquarium fish.
freshwater
Bala Shark
A torpedo-shaped, silver freshwater fish named for its shark-like body outline, though it is a true minnow relative, not a shark. Bold black margins on its fins make it a striking, fast-swimming schooler of Southeast Asian rivers.
freshwater
Creek Chub
A stout, adaptable minnow common in small North American creeks, the creek chub is a dominant predator in headwater streams, feeding on insects and small fish, and known for building spawning nest mounds.
freshwater
Vermilion Snapper
A slender, vivid pinkish-red snapper of deep offshore reefs and hard bottom, feeding mainly on plankton picked from the water column rather than the substrate.
reef
Serpae Tetra
A vividly red-bodied tetra with a bold black shoulder patch, known for its assertive, nippy temperament within shoaling groups.
freshwater
Spotted Wolffish
A large, deep-water wolffish covered in bold dark spots, found in cold Arctic and North Atlantic waters on rocky and gravel seafloor.
deepsea