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.
Largemouth Bass
A robust, olive-green freshwater fish with a distinctive dark lateral stripe and a very large mouth, one of North America's most popular sport fish now established worldwide.
freshwater
Spotted Bass
A compact black bass species with rows of small dark spots below the lateral line, native to the Mississippi and Gulf drainages and often found alongside Largemouth and Smallmouth Bass.
freshwater
Striped Bass
A large, silvery, hard-fighting bass marked with bold black stripes, native to the Atlantic coast and now widely established in freshwater reservoirs across North America.
brackish
Redeye Bass
A small, stream-dwelling black bass named for its bright red eyes, native to rocky, fast-flowing rivers of the southeastern Appalachian foothills.
freshwater
Rock Bass
A robust, bronze-colored sunfish relative with striking red eyes, often found around rocky cover in clear streams and lakes of eastern and central North America.
freshwater
Kelp Bass
The kelp bass is a mottled olive-brown temperate reef fish closely tied to kelp forests along the eastern Pacific coast, often seen hovering near kelp fronds and rocky structure.
saltwater
Chalk Bass
A tiny bicolored sea bass with a lavender-blue head and orange rear body, often seen darting over Caribbean rubble reefs.
reef
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
Smallmouth Bass
A bronze-green freshwater bass native to eastern North America, prized as a popular sport fish and recognized by its vertical dark bars and reddish eyes. It favors clear, rocky rivers, streams, and lakes.
freshwater
Peacock Bass
A powerful, brilliantly colored cichlid from South America, prized for its golden-green flanks, dark vertical bars, and the distinctive eyespot at the base of its tail.
freshwater
European Sea Bass
The European sea bass is a sleek, silvery predator common along European and North African coasts, prized by anglers as a hard-fighting sport fish.
saltwater
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
Largetooth Sawfish
One of the largest sawfish species, uniquely able to travel far up freshwater rivers, now Critically Endangered and eliminated from most of its former circumtropical range.
cartilaginous
Red Drum
The Red Drum is a coppery-bronze coastal fish of the western Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico, best known for the dark eyespot near its tail.
brackish
Redfish
A coppery-bronze estuarine predator famous for the large black eyespot near its tail, the Redfish is a mainstay of shallow coastal flats along the Gulf and southeastern Atlantic coasts.
brackish
Potato Grouper
The potato grouper is one of the largest reef groupers, a pale grey fish covered in dark blotches resembling potato skin, found on Indo-Pacific reefs and known for its curious, approachable behavior toward divers.
reef
Grass Rockfish
A stocky, olive-green rockfish adapted to very shallow rocky habitats and tide pools, among the most tolerant rockfish species of low-oxygen, wave-exposed environments.
saltwater
Basking Shark
The world's second-largest fish, a massive gray-brown filter feeder recognized by its enormous gaping mouth and huge gill slits, often seen basking at the surface in cool temperate seas.
cartilaginous
Warmouth
A stocky, big-mouthed sunfish with red eyes and dark cheek streaks, at home in weedy, sluggish waters and swamps of the eastern United States.
freshwater
Copper Rockfish
A coppery-brown rockfish with a pale pink-white band along the back half of its body, commonly found near rocky structure and eelgrass beds close to shore.
saltwater
Wolf Cichlid
One of the largest Central American cichlids, this powerful predator combines vivid turquoise and orange coloration with formidable jaws.
freshwater
Kelp Rockfish
A mottled brown-and-olive rockfish closely tied to kelp forest habitat along the California coast, where its coloring provides camouflage among kelp stipes and rocky understory.
saltwater
Canary Rockfish
A vivid orange-and-gray rockfish of the Pacific continental shelf, easily recognized by its bright orange fins and mottled orange-and-gray body pattern.
saltwater
Black Crappie
A silvery panfish mottled with irregular dark speckling, closely related to the White Crappie but preferring clearer water, and one of the most popular schooling panfish in North America.
freshwater