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.
Rainbow Trout
A popular salmonid native to Pacific-drainage rivers of North America and Asia, known for its silvery body, dark spotting, and the broad pink-red stripe that gives the species its name.
freshwater
Picasso Triggerfish
A boldly patterned triggerfish with geometric blue, yellow, and black markings, common on shallow Indo-Pacific reef flats.
reef
Lake Wanam Rainbowfish
A deep-bodied rainbowfish endemic to the small crater Lake Wanam in Papua New Guinea, with males showing rich orange-red body coloration.
freshwater
Dwarf Gourami
A small, colorful labyrinth fish from South Asia, with males displaying vivid diagonal red and blue stripes, popular in the freshwater aquarium trade.
freshwater
Celebes Rainbowfish
A slender, sail-finned rainbowfish endemic to Sulawesi, easily recognized by its tall, translucent dorsal and anal fins edged in black and yellow.
freshwater
Ornate Butterflyfish
A showy Indo-Pacific butterflyfish with diagonal orange stripes across a white body and black-and-yellow face bands.
reef
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
Domino Damselfish
A hardy black damselfish marked with three bold white spots as a juvenile, named for its resemblance to a domino tile.
reef
Bumblebee Fish
A tiny, boldly banded goby popular in brackish aquariums, named for its wasp-like black-and-yellow stripes.
brackish
Raccoon Butterflyfish
A round, orange-and-white butterflyfish with a black mask-like eye band, named for its raccoon-like facial markings.
reef
Moorish Idol
An unmistakable disc-shaped reef fish with bold black-white-yellow bands and a dramatically long trailing dorsal fin.
reef
Corkwing Wrasse
A small, colorful European wrasse identified by a dark comma-shaped spot behind the eye and a dark blotch on the tail base.
saltwater
Slippery Dick
A common small western-Atlantic wrasse with two dark lateral stripes and a small dark spot at the tail base.
reef
Pompano
A deep-bodied, silvery jack with a forked tail, found along sandy coastal shores of the eastern Atlantic and Mediterranean.
saltwater
Yellow Tang
A brilliant all-yellow surgeonfish common on Pacific coral reefs, especially around Hawaii, easily recognized by its disc-shaped body and sharp tail spine.
reef
Coral Hind
A vivid orange-red Indo-Pacific grouper scattered with pale iridescent-blue spots, commonly seen resting near coral heads and reef ledges.
reef
Celestial Pearl Danio
A tiny, jewel-like danio with a dark blue body covered in pearly spots and orange-red banded fins, discovered only in the mid-2000s in Myanmar.
freshwater
Neon Tetra
A tiny schooling characin from Amazonian blackwater streams, instantly recognized by its glowing blue-green stripe and bright red lower body, one of the most popular aquarium fish ever kept.
freshwater
Seahorse
An unmistakable upright-swimming fish with a horse-like head and curled prehensile tail, notable for males carrying and giving birth to offspring.
reef
Forktail Rainbowfish
A tiny, colorful blue-eye rainbowfish from New Guinea named for its distinctively forked, yellow-edged tail fin.
freshwater
White Hake
White hake is a large, elongated cod relative of the western North Atlantic shelf and slope, larger and grayer than red hake, with long pelvic fin filaments.
saltwater
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
Catalina Goby
A tiny, vividly colored goby with electric blue bands over a red-orange body, found perched on rocky reefs and kelp holdfasts off the Pacific coast.
reef
Yellowhead Jawfish
A pale, yellow-headed jawfish that hovers above a self-dug sand burrow, diving in tail-first when startled.
reef