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.
Freshwater Archerfish
The largest and most freshwater-tolerant of the archerfish, marked by scattered dark spots rather than bold bars. It uses the same precise water-spitting technique as its relatives to knock insects from overhanging vegetation.
freshwater
Coral Beauty Angelfish
The Coral Beauty Angelfish is a small dwarf angelfish with a deep purple-blue body and orange-yellow scale highlights, widely distributed across Indo-Pacific reefs.
reef
Potter's Angelfish
A small Hawaiian endemic dwarf angelfish, rusty orange with blue-grey and fine wavy blue lines.
reef
Chinese Algae Eater
An elongated Southeast Asian freshwater fish with a specialized sucker mouth used to graze algae from rocks, becoming increasingly territorial as it matures.
freshwater
South American Lungfish
An eel-shaped South American fish that breathes almost entirely through a single lung, allowing it to survive dry seasons buried in mud.
freshwaterWhipnose Anglerfish
A deep-sea anglerfish with an extraordinarily long, whip-like fishing rod, often exceeding its own body length, tipped with a luminous lure trailed out in the darkness to draw in curious prey.
deepsea
Lemonpeel Angelfish
A small, bright yellow Pacific dwarf angelfish with a blue ring around the eye and blue edging on the fins.
reef
Atlantic Mudskipper
An amphibious goby that hops and skips across mangrove mudflats using muscular pectoral fins, breathing air through its skin and mouth lining when out of water.
brackish
Atlantic Flyingfish
A streamlined, silvery flyingfish of the tropical Atlantic that uses its oversized wing-like pectoral fins to glide over the surface for long distances to escape predators.
pelagic
Auriga Butterflyfish
A very common Indo-Pacific butterflyfish with cross-hatched white body, yellow rear, and often a trailing dorsal filament.
reefAtlantic Silverside
A slender, schooling coastal fish common along the western Atlantic shoreline, marked by a bright silver stripe running down each flank.
brackish
Aiptasia-eating Filefish
A small, drab Indo-Pacific filefish prized in reef aquariums for its habit of eating Aiptasia glass anemones, blending into seagrass and algae with mottled camouflage.
reef
Semicircle Angelfish
A large Indo-Pacific angelfish; adults are greenish-brown with blue-speckled fins and blue face lines.
reef
Rock Beauty Angelfish
A vividly two-toned Caribbean angelfish with a bright yellow front half, a black rear body, and blue-edged fins, commonly seen darting among reef crevices and ledges.
reef
Freshwater Angelfish
An iconic Amazonian aquarium fish with a tall, disc-shaped, laterally compressed body, long trailing fins, and bold vertical stripes that help it blend among submerged roots and plants.
freshwater
Ctenopoma (African Bushfish)
A stealthy, mottled labyrinth fish from West and Central Africa that ambushes small prey from cover and can gulp air to survive in oxygen-poor swamps.
freshwater
Vermiculated Angelfish
A small pygmy-group angelfish with a bold yellow head, blue-black body etched with fine wavy vermiculated blue lines, commonly seen darting around coral rubble on Indo-Pacific reefs.
reef
Bowfin
A hardy, ancient freshwater fish with a long undulating dorsal fin and the ability to gulp air, often called a living fossil for its unchanged lineage of millions of years.
freshwater
Twinspot Wrasse
A large Indo-Pacific wrasse; juveniles are white with two red-and-black spots, while old males become bulky and greenish with a forehead hump.
reef
Frigate Mackerel
A small tuna-like fish with a distinctive dark, wavy tiger-stripe pattern on its upper back, found in warm oceanic waters worldwide.
pelagicWhite Marlin
A slender, fast-swimming billfish of the tropical and temperate Atlantic, known for its rounded fins and vivid blue-white coloration.
pelagic
Threadfin Trevally
An Indo-Pacific jack whose juveniles trail extraordinarily long thread-like fins, maturing into deep-bodied, steep-headed adults over sandy coastal bottoms and reef edges.
reefHardhead Catfish
A common western Atlantic sea catfish with a bony plate on its head, short barbels, and a mouthbrooding reproductive strategy shared with related sea catfish.
saltwater
Twig Catfish
The Twig Catfish is an extraordinarily thin, elongated armored catfish that mimics a floating twig or plant stem to avoid predators.
freshwater