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.
Common Roach
A widespread European freshwater fish with a silvery body and distinctive red-orange fins, forming large shoals in slow rivers, lakes, and canals.
freshwater
Barreleye
The barreleye, or spookfish, is a deep-sea fish with a transparent, dome-shaped head revealing barrel-shaped, upward-rotating tubular eyes, unlike any other fish.
deepsea
Bicolor Anthias
A small Indo-Pacific reef fish sharply divided in color, with a violet-purple front half and a golden-yellow rear half, forming loose groups above reef structure.
reef
Arapaima
One of the largest freshwater fish in the world, this massive Amazonian species has thick armor-like scales and must surface periodically to breathe air.
freshwater
Worm Pipefish
A tiny, tailless pipefish that hides among seaweed and rock-pool fronds along European rocky shores, resembling a thin brown worm more than a typical fish.
saltwater
Wolf Herring
A slender, silvery predator with a fanged, upturned jaw, the wolf herring hunts small fish in Indo-Pacific coastal waters despite belonging to the herring order.
saltwater
Whale Shark
The largest fish in the world, a gentle filter-feeding shark covered in a distinctive checkerboard pattern of pale spots and stripes, found in warm seas worldwide.
cartilaginous
Sixline Soapfish
A dark brown-black Indo-Pacific reef fish marked with six pale horizontal stripes, known for secreting a bitter, toxic skin mucus as a defense mechanism.
reefSnailfish
A tadpole-shaped, scaleless fish family found from shallow tide pools to the deepest ocean trenches; hadal-zone species hold the record for the deepest fish ever observed.
deepsea
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
Reef Stonefish
The reef stonefish is the classic, rock-mimicking stonefish of coral reef flats, considered one of the most venomous fish in the sea and virtually invisible against reef rubble.
reef
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
Pacific Lamprey
The Pacific lamprey is a jawless, anadromous fish with a toothed sucking disc mouth, found along Pacific coastlines from Baja California to Japan and Alaska.
saltwater
King Mackerel
A large, streamlined mackerel of the warm western Atlantic, prized as a fast offshore game fish and recognizable by its silvery, unmarked body.
pelagic
Firefish
The Firefish is a slender, white-to-orange goby-like fish with a tall sail-like dorsal fin, known for hovering above its burrow and darting inside when startled.
reef
Garfish
A long, silvery, needle-jawed fish of European coastal waters, instantly recognizable by its bright green backbone and slender, beak-like snout.
pelagic
Blue Tang
A vivid royal-blue reef fish with a black palette-shaped marking and a bright yellow tail, popularized worldwide after appearing in animated film.
reef
California Grunion
A slender coastal fish famous for coming fully ashore on sandy California beaches during nighttime spawning runs timed to spring high tides.
saltwater
African Arowana
A large African bonytongue fish with a toothless, filter-feeding mouth adapted for straining plankton and detritus from floodplain waters.
freshwaterSleeper Goby
A stout, goby-like estuarine fish that rests motionless on the bottom for long stretches, distinguished from true gobies by its separate (unfused) pelvic fins.
brackish
Suckermouth Catfish
A heavily armored South American catfish with a disc-shaped sucking mouth used to graze algae from rocks and wood, one of the most familiar aquarium fish worldwide.
freshwaterTadpole Cod
The tadpole cod is a tiny, translucent Gadiform fish named for its tadpole-like shape, found in warm surface waters worldwide and distinguished by its thread-like forward pelvic fins.
pelagic
Skipjack Tuna
A small, fast-swimming tuna with bold dark stripes along its lower body, forming enormous schools across warm oceans and supporting the world's largest tuna fishery.
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