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.
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
Striped Catfish
An eel-shaped Indo-Pacific reef catfish marked with pale longitudinal stripes, whose juveniles form dense, tightly packed schooling balls over sand and reef flats.
reef
Striped Marlin
A swift, streamlined billfish famous for its tall, sail-like blue dorsal fin and rows of pale vertical stripes, ranging widely through the Pacific and Indian Oceans as a top offshore predator.
pelagic
Striped Panchax
A larger South Asian killifish, also called the golden wonder killifish, marked by bold dark horizontal stripes on a golden-olive body. It hunts insects near the surface of ponds and rice paddies.
freshwater
Striped Sea Robin
A bottom-dwelling northwestern Atlantic fish with an armored head and wing-like pectoral fins, the Striped Sea Robin shows bold dark diagonal bars along its brownish body.
saltwaterKingfish
Kingfish, led by the Northern Kingfish, are silvery-grey surf-zone drums with a chin barbel and diagonal body bars, common along Atlantic beaches.
saltwaterZebra Danio
A small, torpedo-shaped freshwater fish famous for the bold horizontal blue and gold stripes running the length of its body, and widely used as a model species in scientific research.
freshwater
Black Drum
The Black Drum is a deep-bodied, greyish-black sciaenid with distinctive chin barbels, found in estuaries and coastal waters from the mid-Atlantic to Argentina.
brackish
Stars and Stripes Puffer
A widespread Indo-Pacific puffer, also called the whitespotted puffer, marked with fine white spots on an olive-brown body and dark rings encircling the eyes and pectoral fin bases.
reef
Banded Gourami
A hardy South Asian labyrinth fish known for its diagonal orange-blue stripes and ability to gulp air in oxygen-poor water.
freshwaterZebra Seahorse
A small, boldly striped seahorse endemic to northern Australian waters, patterned with fine dark bands that give it a distinctly zebra-like appearance.
reef
Blackstripe Topminnow
A slender freshwater killifish of the central and eastern U.S., identified by a single solid black stripe running from snout to tail. It inhabits quiet pools and slow stream reaches.
freshwater
Orange-lined Triggerfish
The Orange-lined Triggerfish is a dark green triggerfish covered in bold curving orange stripes, one of the most vividly patterned fish on Indo-Pacific reefs.
reef
Four-Eyed Fish
A surface-dwelling brackish-water fish famous for eyes split into upper and lower halves, allowing it to see simultaneously above and below the waterline.
brackish
Lined Surgeonfish
A boldly striped blue, black, and yellow tang that fiercely defends algal-turf patches on shallow, wave-exposed reef crests across the Indo-Pacific.
reef
Clown Tang
A vividly striped surgeonfish with alternating blue, black, and yellow horizontal lines, one of the most aggressively territorial herbivores on shallow Indo-Pacific reef crests.
reef
Banded Rainbowfish
A highly variable, boldly patterned rainbowfish from northeastern Australia, often showing multiple dark horizontal stripes and vivid regional color forms.
freshwater
Tanganyika Goby
A small, goby-shaped cichlid endemic to Lake Tanganyika's rocky shallows, grazing algae from wave-washed rocks and instantly recognizable by its blunt head and bottom-hugging posture.
freshwater
Raphael Catfish
A hardy South American armored catfish known for the bold cream stripes running along its dark body and its ability to produce audible clicking sounds when handled.
freshwater
Bluestripe Pipefish
The bluestripe pipefish is a tiny reef pipefish with a bright blue lateral stripe running along a tan or orange body, often seen hovering near crevices where it also cleans parasites from larger fish.
reef
Skunk Clownfish
A slender, pale peach-to-pink anemonefish marked by a single white stripe running from snout to tail, living in symbiosis with sea anemones on Indo-Pacific reefs.
reef
Silver Scat
A disc-shaped, silvery fish marked with dark vertical bars, found schooling in brackish estuaries and mangroves across the Indo-Pacific and northern Australia.
brackish
Zebra Loach
A small, boldly striped South Indian loach with fine dark vertical bands, popular in aquariums for its compact size and peaceful, social behavior.
freshwater
Jackknife-fish
A boldly black-and-white striped reef drum with a dramatic, curved dorsal fin that resembles the blade of an open jackknife.
reef