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.
Tropical Two-wing Flyingfish
A stocky, oceanic flyingfish found in warm seas worldwide, using only its large pectoral fins as wings to glide over the waves while its short pelvic fins remain small.
pelagic
Wrestling Halfbeak
Named for the ritualized jaw-locking contests between rival males, the wrestling halfbeak is a slender surface-dwelling fish from Southeast Asian creeks and mangrove-fringed brackish waters.
brackish
Topsmelt
A slender, silvery schooling fish common in bays, estuaries, and kelp beds along the eastern Pacific coast, often seen shoaling near the surface in large numbers.
saltwater
Yellow Boxfish
The Yellow Boxfish is a cube-shaped reef fish, bright yellow with black spots as a juvenile, that swims with slow, hovering movements thanks to its rigid armored body.
reef
Tomtate
A small silvery grunt common over reefs and hard-bottom habitats of the western Atlantic, recognized by a dark blotch near the base of its tail fin.
reef
Windowpane Flounder
An almost circular, paper-thin Atlantic coast flatfish so translucent that light passes through its body, with light brown mottled coloring and widely spaced eyes.
saltwater
Tropical Gar
A large-bodied gar native to Central American rivers and lakes, with a broad snout and faint dark spotting on its rear body and fins.
freshwater
Yellow Jack
A reef-associated western Atlantic jack easily recognized by the bright yellow wash on its fins and tail, often seen patrolling reef edges in small schools.
reef
Tomato Clownfish
A deep-bodied, orange-red anemonefish with a single white head bar, living in close partnership with a host sea anemone.
reef
Wolf Eel
The Wolf Eel is a large, spotted, eel-shaped fish of North Pacific rocky reefs that forms long-term pairs and cooperatively guards its eggs in a shared den.
saltwater
Torpedo Ray
The largest of the electric rays, a powerful bottom-dweller capable of delivering an electric shock strong enough to stun sizeable fish.
cartilaginous
Yellowhead Jawfish
A pale, yellow-headed jawfish that hovers above a self-dug sand burrow, diving in tail-first when startled.
reefTotoaba
A critically endangered giant drum endemic to the Gulf of California, notable as one of the largest members of the Sciaenidae family.
saltwater
Yellow Watchman Goby
A bright yellow burrowing goby that forms a cooperative partnership with pistol shrimp, sharing a burrow while acting as lookout for the nearly blind shrimp.
reef
Two-spot Goby
A small sand-dwelling goby known for the two large false eyespots on its raised dorsal fin, which mimic a crab's eyes to startle predators.
reef
Zebra Shark
A slender, docile reef shark whose striped juveniles transform into leopard-like spotted adults, unmistakable due to its very long tail.
reef
Twig Catfish
The Twig Catfish is an extraordinarily thin, elongated armored catfish that mimics a floating twig or plant stem to avoid predators.
freshwater
Yoyo Loach
A patterned South Asian loach whose silvery body is marked with dark lines that form Y- and X-shaped patterns, giving rise to its common name.
freshwater
Uaru
A large, deep-bodied Amazonian cichlid known for a dramatic color change with age, from a striped juvenile pattern to a mottled brown adult, and for a rare parenting behavior in which parents feed their fry a body-slime secretion.
freshwater
Walleye Pollock
Walleye pollock is an abundant, schooling cod relative of the North Pacific, identified by its slender silvery body, speckled back, protruding lower jaw, and forked tail.
pelagic
Sterlet
The sterlet is the smallest widespread sturgeon species, a slender freshwater fish of Ponto-Caspian rivers known for its long, thin, upturned snout with fringed barbels.
freshwater
Warsaw Grouper
A massive, deep-dwelling western Atlantic grouper with a dark brownish-red body, oversized head, and a second dorsal spine noticeably longer than the others.
deepsea
Texas Cichlid
The only cichlid native to the United States, this pearly, turquoise-spotted fish thrives in the rivers of Texas and northeastern Mexico.
freshwater
Unicornfish
A large gray-brown surgeonfish named for the forward-pointing bony horn projecting from its forehead, an important herbivore grazing tough brown algae on Indo-Pacific reef flats.
reef
Sweetlips
Sweetlips is the common name for boldly striped reef fish of the genus Plectorhinchus, exemplified by the Oriental sweetlips, known for thick fleshy lips and dramatic juvenile-to-adult color change.
reef
Watchman Goby
The Watchman Goby is a bright yellow burrow-dwelling fish that forms a cooperative partnership with a pistol shrimp, hovering guard duty at the burrow entrance while the shrimp maintains the tunnel.
reef
Striped Sea Robin
A bottom-dwelling northwestern Atlantic fish with an armored head and wing-like pectoral fins, the Striped Sea Robin shows bold dark diagonal bars along its brownish body.
saltwater
Walleye
A slender, golden-olive freshwater predator named for its large, glassy, light-reflective eyes that give it excellent low-light vision for hunting at dusk and in murky water.
freshwater
Thresher Shark
An unmistakable shark with an extraordinarily long, whip-like upper tail lobe used to stun schooling prey, found roaming temperate and tropical open oceans worldwide.
cartilaginous
White Cloud Mountain Minnow
A hardy, cold-tolerant minnow with a metallic green-gold stripe and red-tinted fins, native to cool mountain streams in southern China.
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
Venustus Cichlid
Nicknamed the giraffe cichlid for its blotched, leopard-like pattern, this Lake Malawi predator is known for a striking hunting trick: lying motionless on its side to lure in unsuspecting prey.
freshwater
Swamp Eel
A limbless, scaleless, snake-like eel that burrows through mud in freshwater and brackish swamps of South and Southeast Asia and can survive in poorly oxygenated water using accessory air breathing.
brackish
Waspfish
A camouflaged, spiny bottom-dweller with fan-like pectoral fins and a mottled reddish-brown pattern, resting on sand or rubble near reefs across the Indo-Pacific.
saltwater
Tiger Barb
A small, deep-bodied freshwater fish marked with four bold black vertical bars across a golden-orange body, often seen darting energetically in tight schools.
freshwater
Weakfish
The Weakfish is an iridescent greenish-bronze sciaenid with diagonal spotted markings, found in mid-Atlantic estuaries and coastal waters of the U.S.
brackish
Stoplight Parrotfish
A common Caribbean reef fish whose terminal-phase males show brilliant green bodies with a distinctive yellow spot at the tail base resembling a stoplight.
reef
Western Mosquitofish
Native to the Mississippi River basin and Gulf Coast, the western mosquitofish is one of the most widely introduced fish on Earth, prized and criticized in equal measure for its mosquito-control abilities.
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
White Grunt
A stout, silvery reef fish with a bright orange-red mouth lining, known for the grinding sound it makes with its pharyngeal teeth.
reef
Tinfoil Barb
A large, fast-swimming barb with brilliant silver, mirror-like scales and orange-red fins, the tinfoil barb inhabits big Southeast Asian rivers and forms sizable shoals in open water.
freshwater
White Perch
A silvery, deep-bodied temperate bass rather than a true perch, common in brackish estuaries and coastal rivers of eastern North America.
brackish
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.
reef
Tiger Tail Seahorse
A Southeast Asian reef seahorse easily recognized by the bold alternating light and dark stripes banding its prehensile tail, resembling a tiger's pattern.
reef
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
Trumpetfish
A long, tube-bodied ambush predator that hovers motionless among reef structures, often drifting vertically to mimic a stray branch or gorgonian coral before striking small fish.
reef
Spotfin Lionfish
A true lionfish with elongated, spotted pectoral fin rays and reddish-brown bars, found resting in reef crevices by day across the Indo-Pacific.
reef
Turquoise Rainbowfish
An electric-blue rainbowfish endemic to Lake Kutubu in Papua New Guinea's highlands, prized for its uniform turquoise sheen.
freshwater