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.
Waspfish
A camouflaged, spiny bottom-dweller with fan-like pectoral fins and a mottled reddish-brown pattern, resting on sand or rubble near reefs across the Indo-Pacific.
saltwater
Slippery Dick
A common small western-Atlantic wrasse with two dark lateral stripes and a small dark spot at the tail base.
reef
Rock Cook
A tiny olive-brown wrasse of northeastern Atlantic kelp reefs, the Rock Cook forages among rocks and crevices and can change sex during its lifetime.
saltwater
Senorita
A slender, golden-brown kelp forest wrasse of the California coast known for its cleaning behavior, picking parasites off larger fish such as sheephead.
saltwater
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.
reef
Hogfish
A large western-Atlantic wrasse with a pig-like snout and long front dorsal spines, able to rapidly change color.
reef
California Sheephead
A large sequential-hermaphrodite wrasse of California and Baja kelp forests, with males showing a striking black-and-red pattern and prominent canine teeth used to crush hard-shelled prey.
reef
Spanish Hogfish
A colorful western-Atlantic wrasse with a purple-blue upper front and yellow rear, and a well-known juvenile cleaning habit.
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
Cunner
A small, cold-hardy wrasse with highly variable coloring, found on rocky reefs and kelp beds along the western Atlantic and known for becoming dormant in winter.
saltwater
Tautog
A large, robust, dark-mottled wrasse tied closely to rocky reefs and wrecks along the western Atlantic coast, known for its powerful shellfish-crushing jaws.
saltwater
Wolf Eel
The Wolf Eel is a large, spotted, eel-shaped fish of North Pacific rocky reefs that forms long-term pairs and cooperatively guards its eggs in a shared den.
saltwater
Tarpon Snook Blenny
A slender, elongated pikeblenny with a pointed snout and torpedo-shaped body, sheltering in abandoned tube-worm holes on sandy reef flats and seagrass beds of the western Atlantic and Caribbean.
reef
Redfish
A coppery-bronze estuarine predator famous for the large black eyespot near its tail, the Redfish is a mainstay of shallow coastal flats along the Gulf and southeastern Atlantic coasts.
brackish
Red Drum
The Red Drum is a coppery-bronze coastal fish of the western Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico, best known for the dark eyespot near its tail.
brackish
Oscar
A large, intelligent South American cichlid known for its bold personality, striking mottled coloration, and a dark false eyespot near the base of its tail.
freshwater
Figure-Eight Puffer
A small brackish-water pufferfish named for the bold black figure-eight-shaped markings across its yellow-green back. Like other puffers, it can inflate its body with water as a defense against predators.
brackish
Clownfish
A small, brilliantly orange reef fish with three white bars, famous for its symbiotic partnership with sea anemones on Indo-Pacific coral reefs.
reef
Peacock Bass
A powerful, brilliantly colored cichlid from South America, prized for its golden-green flanks, dark vertical bars, and the distinctive eyespot at the base of its tail.
freshwater
Epaulette Shark
A small, slender reef shark famed for 'walking' across exposed reef flats on its paddle-like fins, marked by a large dark eyespot behind each gill.
reef