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.
Bolivian Ram
A hardier, calmer cousin of the German Blue Ram, this South American dwarf cichlid sports a soft gray-gold body with a ruby-edged dorsal fin.
freshwater
Pristella Tetra
A translucent, pale-golden tetra whose semi-transparent body reveals internal structures, marked by distinctive black-and-yellow fin patches.
freshwater
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.
cartilaginousNorthern Kingfish
A slender surf-dwelling drum of the Atlantic coast, marked by bold dark diagonal bars and a distinctive elongated dorsal fin ray.
saltwater
Angel Shark
A flattened, ray-like shark that buries itself in sand to ambush passing fish, once widespread but now one of the most critically threatened sharks in Europe.
saltwater
Viperfish
The viperfish is a deep-sea predator famous for its oversized, needle-like fangs and a light-tipped dorsal fin ray used as a lure in the dark mesopelagic zone.
deepsea
Smalltooth Sawfish
A Critically Endangered ray-relative with a long, tooth-lined saw-like snout, once common in warm western Atlantic coastal waters but now greatly reduced in range.
cartilaginous
Sawfish
A critically endangered ray with a long, tooth-lined snout resembling a saw, used to detect and strike schooling fish in shallow tropical waters.
cartilaginous
Northern Sea Robin
A bottom-dwelling western Atlantic fish with an armored head and huge wing-like pectoral fins, using leg-like fin rays to walk across the seafloor.
saltwater
Gafftopsail Catfish
A silvery Atlantic sea catfish named for the tall, sail-like extension of its first dorsal fin ray and long trailing pectoral fin filaments.
saltwater
Red Gurnard
A reddish-pink bottom-dweller of European seas, the Red Gurnard has an armored head and finger-like pectoral rays it uses to walk and sense prey along the seafloor.
saltwater
Cobia
A large, elongated, shark-like fish that roams warm coastal waters worldwide and often follows rays, turtles, and floating structure.
pelagic
Spotfin Lionfish
A true lionfish with elongated, spotted pectoral fin rays and reddish-brown bars, found resting in reef crevices by day across the Indo-Pacific.
reef
Emperor Tetra
A refined, violet-blue tetra from Colombia known for a bold black lateral stripe and males' elongated, sword-like central tail rays.
freshwater
Gizzard Shad
A deep-bodied, silvery freshwater fish easily recognized by its blunt, rounded snout and long, whip-like filament trailing from the last dorsal fin ray, common in rivers, lakes, and reservoirs across North America.
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
Sand Sole
A northeastern Pacific flatfish identified by long, thread-like free dorsal fin rays at the front of its head, light brown spotted body, and shallow sandy habitat.
saltwater
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
Oarfish
An extraordinarily long, silver, ribbon-shaped deep-sea fish with a red crest and trailing fin rays, rarely seen alive at the surface and among the longest bony fish known.
deepsea
Grenadier
Grenadiers, or rattails, are deep-sea fish found on ocean slopes worldwide, unmistakable for their oversized head tapering into a long, thin, whip-like tail with no true tail fin.
deepsea
Silver Aba
A tail-less, eel-shaped African fish that swims by rippling a long dorsal fin and generates a weak electric field to sense its surroundings.
freshwater