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.
Skipjack Shad
A slender, fast-swimming river herring native to major drainages of central and eastern North America, the Skipjack Shad is known for leaping clear of the water while pursuing prey near the surface.
freshwater
Threadfin Shad
A small, deep-bodied herring relative native to the Gulf Coast and Mississippi basin, the Threadfin Shad is widely stocked in freshwater reservoirs across the United States as an important forage fish.
freshwater
Gulf Menhaden
A deep-bodied, oily-scaled herring relative that forms enormous schools in Gulf of Mexico estuaries, playing a major role as a forage fish in coastal food webs.
brackish
Hake
A slender, silvery predatory fish with a large toothy mouth and two widely separated dorsal fins, Hake patrol continental shelf waters of the northeastern Atlantic and Mediterranean.
saltwaterHilsa Shad
An anadromous herring of the Bay of Bengal region, the Hilsa Shad undertakes long migrations up rivers such as the Ganges and Padma to spawn and holds major cultural significance across South Asia.
brackish
Scaled Sardine
A small, deep-bodied silvery fish that forms dense inshore schools along the Western Atlantic coast, easily confused with other small herring-like species.
saltwater
Cisco
Cisco, also known as lake herring, are slender silvery relatives of whitefish that form large open-water schools in the cold lakes of the northern United States and Canada, feeding mainly on plankton.
freshwater
Alewife
A small, silvery anadromous herring native to the Atlantic coast of North America, recognizable by a single dark shoulder spot, that migrates from the ocean into freshwater rivers and lakes each spring to spawn.
brackish
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
Salmon Shark
A powerful, warm-bodied mackerel shark closely related to the Porbeagle, built for speed in the cold North Pacific and named for its preference for salmon.
pelagic
Green Sturgeon
The green sturgeon is the most marine-adapted North American sturgeon, ranging widely along the Pacific coast and entering rivers only occasionally to spawn.
saltwaterJapanese Sardine
A schooling pelagic fish abundant in the waters around Japan, the Japanese Sardine undergoes dramatic multi-decade population cycles and forms one of the largest single-species biomasses in the northwest Pacific.
pelagic
Sailfish
One of the fastest fish in the ocean, instantly recognizable by its towering, sail-like dorsal fin and elongated spear-like upper jaw used to slash through schools of prey.
pelagic
Sailfin Tang
A striped surgeonfish famous for its oversized, sail-like dorsal and anal fins, common on Indo-Pacific coral reefs.
reef
Dover Sole
The Dover sole is a slippery-skinned, right-eyed flatfish of the North Pacific, unusual among soles for living on deep continental slope bottoms far offshore.
deepsea
Rockfish
Rockfish is a broad name for the roughly 100-plus Sebastes species of the North Pacific, spiny-finned, long-lived fish closely tied to rocky reefs and kelp forests.
saltwater
Kawakawa
A compact, fast schooling tuna of the Indo-Pacific with a wavy dark pattern on its back and several distinctive dark spots between the pectoral and pelvic fins.
pelagic
White Sturgeon
The white sturgeon is the largest freshwater fish in North America, an armored, long-snouted giant found in Pacific coast rivers from California to British Columbia.
freshwater
Blue Marlin
A massive, cobalt-blue billfish with a long spear-like bill, the Blue Marlin is one of the fastest and largest predators of the open tropical ocean.
pelagic
Sprat
A small, slender schooling herring relative found in vast numbers along European coasts, the Sprat is an important forage fish that filters plankton from the water column in dense, fast-moving shoals.
pelagic
Twaite Shad
A slender anadromous herring relative found along European and North African coasts, the Twaite Shad migrates into estuaries and rivers to spawn and is distinguished from the Allis Shad by its row of dark flank spots.
brackish
American Gizzard Shad
A deep-bodied, blunt-snouted herring relative common in lakes and rivers across eastern and central North America, the American Gizzard Shad is a highly abundant forage fish named for its muscular, gizzard-like stomach.
freshwater
American Shad
The largest member of the herring family in North America, this deep-bodied, silvery, anadromous fish spends most of its life at sea before migrating up coastal rivers each spring to spawn.
brackish
Allis Shad
A large anadromous herring relative native to Europe's Atlantic coast, the Allis Shad spends most of its life at sea but migrates into large rivers each spring to spawn, forming runs that have been much reduced.
brackish