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.
Crevalle Jack
A powerfully built, silvery jack with a steep forehead and a black spot on its gill cover, common along coastal and estuarine waters of the Atlantic.
pelagic
Conger Eel
The Conger Eel is the largest eel in European waters, a strictly marine species inhabiting rocky reefs and wrecks across the northeastern Atlantic and Mediterranean.
saltwater
Silver Perch
The Silver Perch is a small, bright silvery sciaenid common in seagrass and oyster reef habitats along the U.S. Atlantic and Gulf coasts.
brackish
Rainbow Wrasse
A slender Mediterranean and eastern-Atlantic wrasse; terminal males have a vivid orange zigzag stripe along a blue-green body.
saltwater
Lumpsucker
A rounded, ball-shaped North Atlantic fish with rough tuberculate skin and a ventral sucker disc used to cling to rocks and kelp.
saltwater
Little Skate
A small, common skate of the northwest Atlantic continental shelf, widely used in biological research and frequently caught as bycatch in coastal trawls.
cartilaginous
Gulf Flounder
A left-eyed flatfish common along the Gulf of Mexico and southeastern Atlantic coast, marked by three distinctive eyespots arranged in a triangle.
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
Common Skate
One of the largest skates in the world, now Critically Endangered after severe historical overfishing across its North Atlantic range.
cartilaginousFourwing Flyingfish
A true "four-winged" flyingfish with both enlarged pectoral and pelvic fins, allowing exceptionally long surface glides across the tropical Atlantic Ocean.
pelagicNaked Sole
A small, scaleless western Atlantic and Gulf sole with smooth skin, fine dark wavy crossbands, and a habit of burying in clean sand on the continental shelf.
saltwater
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
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
Inland Silverside
A small, slender silverside native to Gulf and Atlantic coastal waters, notable for tolerating a wide range of salinities from brackish estuaries to inland reservoirs.
brackish
European Conger
A large, powerfully built grey eel that shelters in rocky crevices and shipwrecks across the Northeast Atlantic and Mediterranean, among the largest eel species in the region.
saltwater
Bull Rout
Known as the shorthorn sculpin elsewhere, the Bull Rout is a camouflaged, spiny-headed fish common in cold North Atlantic tide pools and rocky shores.
saltwater
Common Pandora
The common pandora is a slender pink sparid of the Mediterranean and eastern Atlantic, typically found over sandy and muddy bottoms where it feeds on small invertebrates.
saltwater
Bogue
The bogue is a slender, silvery schooling sparid common throughout the Mediterranean and eastern Atlantic, feeding on plankton, algae, and small invertebrates in open coastal water.
saltwater
Bar Jack
A sleek, blue-green jack with a dark stripe along its back and a black-and-white striped tail, common on Caribbean and western Atlantic reefs.
reef
Bandwing Flyingfish
A small, slender flyingfish of the tropical Atlantic, identified by the dark crossbands on its otherwise translucent pectoral wing fins as it glides over the open sea.
pelagic
Shanny
The most common rockpool blenny of the northeastern Atlantic, the Shanny is a stout, big-eyed fish that tolerates the harsh, fluctuating conditions of the intertidal zone.
saltwater
Sarpa Salpa
The sarpa salpa, or salema porgy, is a silvery sparid with golden stripes that grazes on algae over Mediterranean and eastern Atlantic reefs and seagrass beds.
reef
Red Drum
The Red Drum is a coppery-bronze coastal fish of the western Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico, best known for the dark eyespot near its tail.
brackish
Pouting
Also called bib, the Pouting is a deep-bodied, coppery-bronze gadoid common around rocky reefs and wrecks of the northeastern Atlantic and Mediterranean.
saltwater