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.
Ribbon Halfbeak
An extraordinarily thin, ribbon-shaped halfbeak of the open ocean, with a long needle-like lower jaw and greatly elongated fins that let it skitter and glide across the surface.
pelagic
Paradise Fish
A hardy East Asian labyrinth fish with vivid blue-and-red banded flanks and flowing fins, historically one of the first ornamental fish kept in Western aquariums.
freshwater
Queen Triggerfish
The Queen Triggerfish is a strikingly colorful Atlantic reef fish, marked by blue facial lines, a yellow-tinged tail, and elongated dorsal and tail fin filaments.
reef
Rainbow Parrotfish
The largest parrotfish in the Caribbean, displaying a striking blend of blue-green and orange coloration and playing a key role in reef sand production and algae control.
reef
Platy
A small, compact livebearer native to Mexico and Central America, the platy is prized for its bright colors, peaceful nature, and ease of breeding in home aquariums.
freshwater
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
Pelican Eel
A deep-sea fish named for its enormous pelican-like pouch of a mouth, which it can expand to engulf prey and water, then slowly expel excess water while retaining any captured prey.
deepsea
Pacific Hagfish
The Pacific hagfish is a jawless, eel-shaped deep-sea scavenger of the eastern Pacific known for releasing thick defensive slime and for feeding on carcasses on the ocean floor.
deepsea
Napoleon Wrasse
A massive, thick-lipped coral reef wrasse with a distinctive bulging forehead hump and blue-green maze-like facial markings, among the largest reef fish in the Indo-Pacific.
reef
Orangespine Unicornfish
A hornless unicornfish marked by a black eye mask, yellow dorsal stripe, and vivid orange blade-like spines at the tail base; common on shallow Indo-Pacific reefs.
reef
Megrim
A slender, left-eyed flatfish of the Northeast Atlantic and Mediterranean, valued commercially and recognizable by its thin, elongated body and large mouth.
saltwater
Ohio Lamprey
The Ohio lamprey is a parasitic, jawless fish native to medium and large rivers of the eastern United States, attaching to host fish with a toothed sucking disc to feed.
freshwater
Ling
The ling is a long, eel-shaped member of the cod family found on deep rocky reefs of the northeastern Atlantic, distinguished by its elongated fins and single chin barbel.
saltwater
Malabar Grouper
The Malabar grouper is a large, olive-grey Indo-Pacific grouper covered in dark blotches and small pale spots, found across coastal reefs, estuaries, and mangrove-lined coasts.
reef
Mangrove Snapper
A grayish snapper common along mangrove shorelines and estuaries of the western Atlantic, showing a faint dark stripe through the eye and a pointed, angular head.
brackish
Longtooth Grouper
A large brownish grouper found from southern Japan to the South China Sea, mottled with faint darker blotches and named for its prominent elongated canine teeth.
reef
Lesser Amberjack
A small, deep-dwelling jack of the western Atlantic, distinguished from its larger amberjack relatives by its modest size and life around offshore reefs and wrecks.
saltwater
Lemon Sole
A thick-bodied northeastern Atlantic flatfish with smooth, slippery, mottled reddish-brown skin, a small mouth, and a preference for firm sand or gravel seabeds.
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
Hammerhead Shark
A shark instantly recognizable by its flattened, laterally extended hammer-shaped head, often seen in large daytime schools near seamounts and coastal areas.
cartilaginous
Halfbeak
The common name for slender, surface-swimming fish of the family Hemiramphidae, marked by a short upper jaw and a long, needle-like lower jaw; the Common Halfbeak represents the group.
saltwater
Greenland Cod
The Greenland cod is a stocky, cold-adapted cod relative found in shallow coastal Arctic waters around Greenland and eastern Canada, distinguished by its deep body and short head.
saltwater
Humphead Wrasse
A massive, long-lived Indo-Pacific reef wrasse known for the prominent bulging hump on its forehead and its role as one of the few predators of toxic crown-of-thorns starfish.
reef
Goldsinny Wrasse
A small reddish-brown wrasse marked by a black tail-base spot, the Goldsinny Wrasse patrols rocky Atlantic reefs and is known for picking parasites off other fish.
saltwater