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.
Nassau Grouper
A stocky Caribbean reef grouper known for its ability to rapidly change color and pattern, from pale to dark barred phases, and for forming large seasonal spawning aggregations now heavily protected.
reef
Dwarf Lionfish
A compact, mottled lionfish with broad fan-like fins and venomous spines, ambushing prey on Indo-Pacific reefs.
reef
Sea Lamprey
The sea lamprey is a primitive, jawless, eel-like fish famous for its parasitic sucker-disc mouth ringed with sharp teeth, which it uses to latch onto and feed on other fish.
saltwater
Honey Gourami
A small, peaceful South Asian labyrinth fish whose breeding males flush a warm honey-gold to orange color with a dark throat and belly, making it a popular gentle community fish.
freshwater
Atlantic Cod
A large, heavy-bodied bottom fish with a distinctive chin barbel and three dorsal fins, the Atlantic Cod is one of the North Atlantic's most historically significant and heavily studied fish species.
saltwater
Sturgeon
An ancient family of large, armored bony fish with bony scutes instead of scales and a shark-like barbeled snout. Sturgeon migrate between rivers and the sea to spawn and are among the most endangered fish groups.
brackish
Pacific Herring
A slender, silvery schooling fish closely related to the Atlantic Herring, found in cold coastal waters across the North Pacific, where it forms a critical forage base for fish, seabirds, and marine mammals.
pelagic
Senegal Bichir
An elongated, primitive-looking freshwater fish with a row of small spiny finlets along its back and paired lung-like breathing organs, retaining features from ancient ray-finned fish ancestors.
freshwater
Tompot Blenny
A large, bold blenny with elaborate branched eye tentacles, common on rocky reefs and harbor walls around the British Isles and Mediterranean.
saltwater
Horse-eye Jack
A deep-bodied, silvery jack with an oversized eye, commonly seen in large stationary schools around Caribbean and Florida reefs and harbors.
reef
Harlequin Tuskfish
A vividly colored wrasse with a turquoise-blue body crossed by orange bars and prominent protruding tusk-like teeth used to crush hard-shelled prey. It inhabits coral-rich reef slopes across the western Pacific.
reefPygmy Goby
One of the smallest vertebrates on Earth, this minute translucent goby perches in crevices on Indo-Pacific coral reefs and has an extraordinarily short lifespan.
reef
Sergeant Major
A common silvery damselfish marked with five bold black vertical bars, resembling military rank stripes, found on shallow tropical reefs.
reef
Sarpa Salpa
The sarpa salpa, or salema porgy, is a silvery sparid with golden stripes that grazes on algae over Mediterranean and eastern Atlantic reefs and seagrass beds.
reef
Pouting
Also called bib, the Pouting is a deep-bodied, coppery-bronze gadoid common around rocky reefs and wrecks of the northeastern Atlantic and Mediterranean.
saltwater
Purple Tang
A vivid violet surgeonfish with a contrasting yellow tail, native to Red Sea coral reefs.
reef
Green Wrasse
A slender Mediterranean wrasse, often green to brownish, associated with seagrass meadows and rocky reefs.
saltwater
Japanese Anchovy
A small, abundant schooling fish found throughout the coastal waters of Japan, Korea, and China, the Japanese Anchovy is one of the most heavily fished species in the western Pacific and a vital link in regional marine food webs.
pelagic
Percula Clownfish
A bright orange anemonefish with three bold white bars outlined in black, famous for its symbiotic partnership with sea anemones on western Pacific reefs.
reef
Garden Eel
Garden Eels are slender, colony-forming eels that live permanently anchored in sandy burrows near reefs, swaying in the current as they catch drifting plankton.
reef
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
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
Yellow Stingray
A small, boldly patterned stingray of the western Atlantic and Caribbean, often seen resting on sand near coral reefs and seagrass beds in shallow, clear water.
reef
Weedy Seadragon
A slender, reddish-purple relative of the seahorse decorated with small leaf-like fin projections and yellow stripes, found along the temperate reefs of southern Australia.
reef