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.
Vermiculated Angelfish
A small pygmy-group angelfish with a bold yellow head, blue-black body etched with fine wavy vermiculated blue lines, commonly seen darting around coral rubble on Indo-Pacific reefs.
reef
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
Volitans Lionfish
A large, boldly banded lionfish with dramatic trailing fins, an ambush predator now invasive across the western Atlantic.
reefCeylon Killifish
An elongated, surface-dwelling killifish endemic to Sri Lanka, showing an orange-red body with fine dark speckling and iridescent scale flecking.
freshwaterMiller Lake Lamprey
The Miller Lake lamprey is a tiny, non-parasitic jawless fish historically restricted to a single lake and its tributary streams in Oregon, one of the smallest lamprey species known.
freshwater
Wobbegong
A superbly camouflaged, flattened bottom-dwelling shark covered in ornate skin markings and fringed barbels that resemble seaweed or coral rubble.
saltwaterTiger Muskie
A hybrid of northern pike and muskellunge, this elongated apex predator sports bold dark tiger stripes and is prized as one of freshwater's most aggressive game fish.
freshwater
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.
reefBluestripe Fangblenny
An elongated blenny with a blue-and-black striped body that mimics cleaner wrasse to approach unsuspecting fish, using enlarged fangs to nip scales, mucus, or tissue before darting away.
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.
reefViolet Goby
An eel-like burrowing goby with an iridescent violet-grey sheen and a large upturned mouth, found in muddy estuaries of the tropical Americas.
brackish
Yellow Seahorse
A widespread and highly variable Indo-Pacific seahorse, commonly seen in bright yellow though also occurring in black, orange, or mottled brown, found from mangrove estuaries to coral reefs.
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
Zebra Moray
The Zebra Moray is a striped Indo-Pacific reef eel with blunt, peg-like teeth specialized for crushing crabs, mollusks, and sea urchins.
reefMexican Lamprey
The Mexican lamprey is a jawless fish endemic to freshwater rivers of the central Mexican highlands, one of the few lamprey species found so far south in North America.
freshwater
Whitetip Reef Shark
A slender nocturnal reef shark marked by distinctive white-tipped fins, often seen resting motionless inside reef caves and under ledges by day across the Indo-Pacific.
reefBlood Parrot Cichlid
A rounded, vivid orange-red hybrid cichlid recognized by its permanently small, beak-like mouth and stubby, rounded fins.
freshwater
Yellowtail Amberjack
A powerful, streamlined jack marked by a bold yellow lateral stripe and yellow tail, roaming temperate and subtropical waters worldwide around reefs, wrecks, and open water.
pelagic
Turbot
Turbot is a large, diamond-shaped left-eyed flatfish known for its rough, scaleless skin studded with bony tubercles and its camouflaged sandy coloration.
saltwater
Widow Rockfish
A bronze-brown, large-eyed rockfish that forms dense midwater schools over the outer continental shelf and was once the target of one of the Pacific coast's largest groundfish fisheries.
saltwater
Tub Gurnard
The largest common European gurnard, with a reddish armored body and enormous, brilliantly blue-green pectoral fins that it spreads when disturbed.
saltwaterWhitefish
Lake whitefish are silvery, streamlined members of the salmon family that inhabit cold, deep lakes across North America, feeding along the bottom for insect larvae and small invertebrates.
freshwater
Two-Banded Clownfish
An orange anemonefish with two broad white bars, the characteristic clownfish of the Red Sea and adjacent Gulf of Aden reefs, always found sheltering among host anemones.
reef
Yellowbelly Damselfish
A small blue-grey damselfish with a bright yellow underside, found sheltering around coral and rubble on shallow reefs of the western Pacific.
reef
Turquoise Killifish
A vividly colored annual killifish from southeastern Africa's temporary pools, notable for having the shortest lifespan of any known vertebrate, typically just a few months in the wild.
freshwater
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
Tiger Shovelnose Catfish
A large South American river catfish with a distinctive flattened, shovel-shaped snout and bold black stripes across a pale body.
freshwater
Whitespotted Moray
A brown moray eel densely covered in small, evenly spaced white spots, commonly seen with its head poking from crevices on shallow Indo-Pacific coral reefs.
reef
Summer Flounder
The summer flounder, also called fluke, is a left-eyed flatfish common along the US Atlantic coast, prized as a popular sport fish and known for its mottled camouflage pattern.
saltwater
Zebrafish
A small, striped South Asian minnow renowned worldwide as a key model organism for genetics and developmental biology research, alongside its popularity as an aquarium fish.
freshwater
Tripod Fish
An abyssal fish that props itself above the seafloor on three elongated fin rays, forming a tripod, and waits motionless facing into the current to ambush tiny drifting prey.
deepsea
Yellowtail Rockfish
A slender, olive-brown Pacific rockfish with yellow-tinted fins that schools in large midwater aggregations over rocky reefs and open water along the North American coast.
saltwater
Tompot Blenny
A large, bold blenny with elaborate branched eye tentacles, common on rocky reefs and harbor walls around the British Isles and Mediterranean.
saltwaterTiger Trout
Tiger trout are a sterile hybrid between brown trout and brook trout, prized by anglers for their striking maze-like markings and aggressive feeding habits.
freshwater
Twinspot Wrasse
A large Indo-Pacific wrasse; juveniles are white with two red-and-black spots, while old males become bulky and greenish with a forehead hump.
reefZebra 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
Targetfish
A silvery, deep-bodied fish marked with three or four bold, curving dark stripes running from head to tail, common in brackish estuaries across the Indo-Pacific.
brackish
Wahoo
One of the fastest fish in the ocean, the Wahoo is a slender, torpedo-shaped predator with iridescent blue-green tiger stripes, found in warm seas worldwide.
pelagic
Telescopefish
A slender deep-sea fish named for its forward-directed, tubular telescoping eyes, which provide sharp binocular vision to detect faint prey silhouettes in near-total darkness.
deepsea
Warmouth
A stocky, big-mouthed sunfish with red eyes and dark cheek streaks, at home in weedy, sluggish waters and swamps of the eastern United States.
freshwater
Tiger Grouper
The tiger grouper is a slender reef grouper of the tropical western Atlantic marked with diagonal dark bars on a pale to reddish-brown body, resembling tiger-like striping.
reef
Zebra Pleco
A small, strikingly patterned armored catfish endemic to the Rio Xingu in Brazil, prized in the aquarium trade for its bold black-and-white stripes but critically endangered by dam construction.
freshwater
Tiger Shark
A large, robust shark named for the dark vertical bars on its flanks, most vivid in juveniles, known for an unusually broad, opportunistic diet.
cartilaginous
West African Lungfish
An eel-shaped African lungfish able to survive months of drought by burrowing into mud and forming a protective cocoon while it aestivates.
freshwater
Tidepool Sculpin
A tiny, well-camouflaged sculpin that spends its life in rocky intertidal tidepools along the Pacific coast, able to survive being stranded above water at low tide.
saltwater
White Crappie
A silvery, deep-bodied panfish with faint vertical bars along its sides, common in reservoirs and turbid rivers of the central United States and prized for its schooling habits and delicate mouth.
freshwater
Titan Triggerfish
The Titan Triggerfish is the largest triggerfish species, recognized by its olive-yellow body, pale moustache stripe, and famously territorial nest-guarding behavior on Indo-Pacific reefs.
reef
Western Brook Lamprey
The western brook lamprey is a small, non-parasitic jawless fish that spends most of its life as a burrowing larva in Pacific Northwest streams before a brief, non-feeding adult stage.
freshwater