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.
Hi Fin Red Banded Goby
A tiny white goby marked with thin red diagonal bands and a tall, flag-like yellow dorsal fin, seen hovering above its burrow that it shares with a snapping shrimp.
reef
Haddock
A slender, silvery-grey relative of the cod, easily recognized by a distinctive black lateral line and a dark thumbprint-like blotch above the pectoral fin.
saltwater
Guitarfish
A shark-like ray with a flattened, guitar-shaped body that blends features of sharks and rays, common on sandy coastal seabeds of the eastern Atlantic and Mediterranean.
cartilaginous
Firefish
The Firefish is a slender, white-to-orange goby-like fish with a tall sail-like dorsal fin, known for hovering above its burrow and darting inside when startled.
reef
Giant Mudskipper
The largest common mudskipper species, a heavy-bodied, predatory amphibious goby that patrols mangrove mudflats across South and Southeast Asia.
brackish
Green Jack
The Green Jack is a schooling eastern Pacific jack with a greenish-blue back, silvery sides, and yellowish lower fins, common in coastal surface waters.
pelagic
Giant Trevally
The largest of the trevallies, a powerful, deep-bodied predator of Indo-Pacific reefs and lagoons known for its steep head profile and ferocious ambush strikes.
reef
Garfish
A long, silvery, needle-jawed fish of European coastal waters, instantly recognizable by its bright green backbone and slender, beak-like snout.
pelagic
Gag Grouper
The gag grouper is an elongated, grey-brown grouper of the western Atlantic recognized by its faint worm-like markings and slender build compared to other groupers.
reef
Galapagos Shark
A large, robust gray shark commonly encountered around remote oceanic islands, closely resembling the Dusky and Silky Sharks but slightly stockier.
saltwater
Featherback Knifefish
A smaller, unspotted relative of the Clown Knifefish found across South and Southeast Asia, with a humped back and a single long fin running beneath its body.
freshwater
Fangtooth
The fangtooth is a small, deep-sea fish with the largest teeth relative to body size of any fish, identified by its oversized fangs, armored head, and compact dark body.
deepsea
European Ling
A very large, elongated, eel-shaped cod relative found on deep rocky and muddy grounds along the continental shelf edge of the northeastern Atlantic.
deepsea
Dwarf Neon Rainbowfish
A pint-sized New Guinea rainbowfish and one of the smallest Melanotaenia species, known in the aquarium trade for its saturated blue-violet males.
freshwater
Denison Barb
A striking torpedo-shaped barb endemic to fast hill streams of India's Western Ghats, known for its bold red-black-yellow stripe and endangered status.
freshwater
Cusk
The cusk is a solitary, eel-like member of the cod family found on deep rocky bottoms of the North Atlantic, recognized by its single long dorsal fin and thick lips.
saltwater
Congo Tetra
A large, iridescent tetra from the Congo River basin, with shimmering blue-violet-gold flanks and, in males, a distinctive flowing, frayed tail fin.
freshwater
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
Bluefish
An aggressive, fast-swimming coastal predator famous for feeding in frenzied schools and slicing through baitfish with razor-sharp teeth.
pelagic
Blue Tang
A vivid royal-blue reef fish with a black palette-shaped marking and a bright yellow tail, popularized worldwide after appearing in animated film.
reef
Candiru
A tiny, translucent Amazonian catfish that feeds by attaching to the gills of larger fish and consuming their blood, one of the few parasitic vertebrates known.
freshwater
Bullhead Catfish
A hardy, whiskered bottom-dweller with a rounded tail and mottled brown skin, thriving in muddy, low-oxygen ponds and slow streams across North America.
freshwater
Black Swallower
A small deep-sea fish renowned for an extraordinarily distensible stomach that lets it engulf prey several times its own body length and mass in a single strike.
deepsea
Almaco Jack
A deep-bodied jack with a tall, strongly notched dorsal fin and elongated fin lobes, commonly found around tropical reefs and offshore structure.
reef