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.
Spanish Grunt
The Spanish grunt is a deep-bodied, silvery-yellow reef grunt of the western Atlantic and Caribbean, marked by dark scale rows and a large mouth used to crush hard-shelled prey.
reef
Sand Tiger Shark
A bulky, fierce-looking but generally docile shark with protruding rows of needle-like teeth, commonly seen hovering near shipwrecks and reef caves along temperate and subtropical coastlines.
cartilaginous
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
Flame Angelfish
The Flame Angelfish is a small, vivid orange-red dwarf angelfish marked with black vertical bars and blue-tipped fins, commonly seen darting among reef crevices in the Pacific.
reef
Yellow-edged Moray
One of the largest reef morays, marked with an intricate maze-like pattern and a bright yellow-edged dorsal fin, hiding by day in rocky and coral crevices.
reef
Valentini Puffer
The Valentini Puffer is a small reef puffer marked by two bold black saddle patches on a white-and-tan body, a pattern also mimicked by an unrelated filefish.
reef
Speckled Moray
A pale, densely speckled moray of Indo-Pacific reef flats, its white to cream body peppered with small black spots that thicken toward the tail.
reef
Spotted Garden Eel
The Spotted Garden Eel lives in dense colonies of speckled, burrow-dwelling eels on sandy reef slopes across the Indo-Pacific, feeding on drifting plankton.
reef
Blackspotted Puffer
The Blackspotted Puffer, also called the dog-faced puffer, is a small reef pufferfish with a gray, yellow, or blue body scattered with a few large dark spots.
reef
Barramundi Cod
The Australian common name for the panther grouper, a pale gray, black-spotted reef grouper instantly recognizable by its small head and steeply humped forehead.
reef
Aiptasia-eating Filefish
A small, drab Indo-Pacific filefish prized in reef aquariums for its habit of eating Aiptasia glass anemones, blending into seagrass and algae with mottled camouflage.
reef
Whitespotted Puffer
A common Indo-Pacific reef puffer with a dark olive-brown body scattered with small white spots and distinctive dark rings around its eyes, gills, and pectoral fin bases.
reef
Threadfin Trevally
An Indo-Pacific jack whose juveniles trail extraordinarily long thread-like fins, maturing into deep-bodied, steep-headed adults over sandy coastal bottoms and reef edges.
reef
Slender Giant Moray
The longest of all moray eel species, this extremely elongated, olive-grey eel patrols muddy estuaries and mangrove channels across the Indo-Pacific rather than typical coral reef.
brackish
Red Lionfish
Instantly recognizable for its fan-like, striped fins and venomous spines, the red lionfish is a native Indo-Pacific reef predator that has become a damaging invasive species in the Western Atlantic.
reef
Achilles Tang
A striking black surgeonfish with a bold orange-red teardrop marking near its tail and matching scalpel-like tail spine. It inhabits high-surf reef zones across the Pacific.
reef
Salmon
A large anadromous fish that hatches in freshwater rivers, migrates to the ocean to mature, and returns upriver to spawn, prized as an iconic sport fish.
freshwater
Bluespine Unicornfish
A large Indo-Pacific tang with a bony forehead horn and paired fixed blue-white spines at the tail base, browsing brown macroalgae on coral reefs and reef flats.
reef
Zebra Turkeyfish
A dwarf lionfish species boldly striped in reddish-brown and white, with broad, fan-like pectoral fins used to corner small prey against reef rubble.
reef
Sohal Tang
A powerfully built surgeonfish endemic to the Red Sea and nearby Arabian waters, marked by bold blue and black striping and known for fiercely defending shallow reef flats.
reef
Mutton Snapper
A rosy-pink Western Atlantic reef snapper marked by blue eye-lines and a small black spot below the dorsal fin, with elegantly pointed fin tips.
reef
Leopard Wrasse
A small, strikingly patterned reef wrasse covered in a dense network of dark-edged spots, often seen hovering low over sand near coral heads while foraging for tiny invertebrates.
reef
Ohio Lamprey
The Ohio lamprey is a parasitic, jawless fish native to medium and large rivers of the eastern United States, attaching to host fish with a toothed sucking disc to feed.
freshwater
Longnose Butterflyfish
A bright yellow butterflyfish with a greatly elongated snout used to pluck small invertebrates from reef crevices. It is one of the most widespread and recognizable butterflyfish across the Indo-Pacific.
reef