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.
Jack Mackerel
A slender, schooling temperate-water jack found off southern Australia and New Zealand, identifiable by its bony lateral scutes and vital role as forage for larger ocean predators.
pelagic
Moonlight Gourami
A sleek, silvery-green Mekong basin gourami with an iridescent sheen and vivid orange-red pelvic fin filaments, notably lacking the dark body spots seen in many related species.
freshwater
Manta Ray
The largest ray in the world, a gentle filter-feeding giant with a diamond-shaped body, forward-facing cephalic fins, and unique underside spot patterns used to identify individuals.
cartilaginous
Lanternfish
Lanternfish are small, extremely abundant mesopelagic fish found worldwide, recognized by rows of light-producing photophores along their silvery bodies and large low-light eyes.
deepsea
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.
saltwater
Golden Shiner
A slender, deep-bodied North American minnow with brassy golden-silver sides, the golden shiner is among the continent's most widely used baitfish, thriving in weedy ponds and slow-moving water.
freshwater
Gold Gourami
A selectively bred, solid golden-yellow color variety of the Three Spot Gourami, developed for the aquarium trade and sharing the same hardy, adaptable biology as its wild-type relative.
freshwater
Hatchetfish
Hatchetfish are small, silvery deep-sea fish named for their laterally compressed, blade-like body and large upward-pointing tubular eyes adapted to detect faint light above.
deepsea
Flat Needlefish
A laterally flattened needlefish with a ribbon-like cross-section, patterned with dark blotches along its silvery flanks, found worldwide in warm coastal and offshore surface waters.
saltwater
French Grunt
The French grunt is a small, abundant reef fish of the Caribbean and western Atlantic, marked by narrow yellow stripes over a silvery-white body and known for forming dense daytime schools.
reef
Fingerfish
Another common name for the disc-shaped Mono, called Fingerfish for its thin, laterally compressed body. It schools in Indo-Pacific estuaries and coastal waters, flashing bright silver as it moves.
brackish
Eastern Rainbowfish
A widespread eastern Australian subspecies of the splendid rainbowfish complex, showing blue-green to golden flanks and yellow-orange fins along coastal Queensland rivers.
freshwater
Eagle Ray
A diamond-shaped ray with a distinctive protruding duck-like snout, often seen gliding gracefully near the seafloor in coastal waters of the eastern Atlantic and Mediterranean.
cartilaginous
Clarkii Clownfish
A hardy, variably colored anemonefish found across the widest range of any clownfish species, typically dark brown-orange with three white bars, and known for hosting in many different anemone species.
reef
Brown Trout
A golden-brown salmonid native to Europe and western Asia, marked by dark and reddish spots along its body, now widely introduced across the globe. It favors cool, clear rivers, streams, and lakes.
freshwater
Blackwing Flyingfish
A stocky, wide-ranging flyingfish named for its large dusky-black pectoral wings, found gliding above open ocean surface waters across much of the world's warm and temperate seas.
pelagic
Bocaccio
A large, streamlined rockfish with a prominent lower jaw and reddish-brown to olive coloring, once heavily depleted along the Pacific coast and now the focus of long-term rebuilding efforts.
saltwater
Barracuda
A large, torpedo-shaped predatory fish found around tropical reefs, seagrass beds, and open coastal waters worldwide, easily identified by its underbite jaw and fang-like teeth.
reef
African Pompano
A deep-bodied jack whose juveniles trail extraordinarily long fin filaments while drifting near floating debris, maturing into steep-headed adults over deep reefs and wrecks.
pelagic
Arctic Lamprey
The Arctic lamprey is a jawless, circumpolar species found across Arctic and sub-Arctic rivers and coastal waters of North America and Asia, recognized by its sucker mouth and slender eel-like body.
brackish
Zebra Mbuna
One of the most iconic Lake Malawi cichlids, the zebra mbuna is highly variable in color across populations but typically shows bold barring, and it forms the basis for one of the aquarium hobby's most popular mbuna groups.
freshwater
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
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
Spotted Seahorse
The spotted seahorse, also called the yellow seahorse, is a widespread Indo-Pacific species with a smooth body, low coronet, and highly variable coloring that ranges from plain yellow to dark blotched patterns.
reef