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.
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
Rock Cook
A tiny olive-brown wrasse of northeastern Atlantic kelp reefs, the Rock Cook forages among rocks and crevices and can change sex during its lifetime.
saltwater
Rock Goby
A small, mottled goby common in rocky tide pools along European and North African coasts, easily spotted darting between rocks at low tide.
saltwaterRock 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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
Rock Beauty Angelfish
A vividly two-toned Caribbean angelfish with a bright yellow front half, a black rear body, and blue-edged fins, commonly seen darting among reef crevices and ledges.
reef
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
Black Rockfish
A dark, deep-bodied schooling rockfish common over rocky reefs and kelp forests along the Pacific coast, often seen in large surface-oriented aggregations.
saltwater
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
Greenland Cod
The Greenland cod is a stocky, cold-adapted cod relative found in shallow coastal Arctic waters around Greenland and eastern Canada, distinguished by its deep body and short head.
saltwater
Reef Stonefish
The reef stonefish is the classic, rock-mimicking stonefish of coral reef flats, considered one of the most venomous fish in the sea and virtually invisible against reef rubble.
reef
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
Molly Miller Blenny
A hardy little blenny that perches motionless on shallow rocks in tropical Atlantic tide pools, easily recognized by the fringed tentacles above its eyes.
saltwater