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.
Stingray
A flat, diamond-shaped cartilaginous fish that spends much of its time partly buried in sand on shallow tropical seafloors, related to sharks and equipped with a long, whip-like venomous-spined tail.
cartilaginous
White Seabass
The White Seabass is a large Pacific coast drum with a bluish-bronze back and silvery sides, closely associated with California's kelp forests.
saltwater
Mediterranean Flyingfish
The most common flyingfish of the Mediterranean Sea, with long, mottled pectoral fins and a slender body built for gliding above coastal pelagic waters.
pelagic
Barred Halfbeak
A schooling, seagrass-associated halfbeak of the Indo-Pacific with a long, red-tipped lower jaw and faint dark bars along its silvery flanks.
saltwater
Japanese Amberjack
The Japanese Amberjack, or yellowtail, is a streamlined pelagic jack from the northwestern Pacific, identified by its bright yellow lateral stripe and yellow-tinged fins.
pelagic
Pacific Mackerel
A schooling pelagic fish of the eastern Pacific with an iridescent blue-green back marked by irregular dark bars and scattered spots along its lower flanks.
pelagic
Silky Shark
A slender, deep-water pelagic shark with smooth, silky-textured skin, among the most abundant sharks found around tropical open-ocean waters.
pelagic
Rainbow Runner
A slender, torpedo-bodied jack with two vivid blue-green stripes, found roaming warm oceans worldwide, often trailing larger pelagic fish like tuna and sharks.
pelagic
Round Herring
Named for its unusually rounded, cylindrical body, the Round Herring is a schooling coastal pelagic fish found in temperate and subtropical seas worldwide, serving as an important forage species for larger predators.
pelagicJapanese 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
Arctic Cod
Arctic cod, or polar cod, is a small, ice-associated Gadidae found throughout the circumpolar Arctic, recognized by its slender body, deeply forked tail, and role as the region's key forage fish.
pelagic
Oceanic Whitetip Shark
A robust open-ocean shark identified by its large, rounded, white-mottled fins, once one of the most abundant pelagic sharks but now heavily depleted across tropical open oceans worldwide.
pelagic
Spanish Sardine
A schooling pelagic fish found throughout warm Atlantic and Mediterranean waters, the Spanish Sardine is larger than the related European Sardine and forms an important forage species across its wide tropical to subtropical range.
pelagicIndian Oil Sardine
A small, oil-rich pelagic fish abundant along India's western coast and the wider northern Indian Ocean, the Indian Oil Sardine forms massive schools and is one of the region's most heavily monitored fisheries species.
pelagic
Neon Goby
A tiny reef fish with an electric blue stripe running nose to tail, best known for cleaning parasites off larger reef fish.
reef
Porcupinefish
A spine-covered, inflatable reef fish found in warm seas worldwide; nocturnal and slow-moving, it shelters in reef crevices by day and forages for hard-shelled prey at night.
reef
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
Bigeye Trevally
A large, silvery-to-black reef jack famous for forming massive, swirling daytime schools around Indo-Pacific reef passes and drop-offs.
reefTwo-spot Red Snapper
The two-spot red snapper, or bohar snapper, is a large, deep red Indo-Pacific reef predator, sometimes showing two pale saddle spots on the back, and an important predator on coral reef slopes.
reef
Fairy Wrasse
A dazzling small reef wrasse in which males flash iridescent shades of red, purple, and blue during courtship displays over coral rubble and reef slopes.
reef
Brown Surgeonfish
A small, plain brown Indo-Pacific tang that is nonetheless one of the most abundant algae-grazing reef fish, playing a key role in controlling reef algal growth.
reef
Bluestriped Grunt
A vividly striped Caribbean reef fish with a bright yellow body crossed by narrow electric-blue lines, often seen in dense daytime schools beneath reef ledges.
reef
Undulated Moray
A common Indo-Pacific reef moray with bold wavy, maze-like dark markings over a pale body, often seen with its head poking from reef crevices.
reef
Steephead Parrotfish
A large Indo-Pacific parrotfish named for its abruptly steep, blunt forehead, typically seen grazing algae and reef rock along outer reef slopes in small groups.
reef