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.
Bonefish
A silvery, torpedo-shaped fish of shallow tropical flats, nicknamed the 'grey ghost' for its uncanny ability to vanish against sandy bottoms.
saltwaterWitch Flounder
A slender, tongue-shaped deep-water North Atlantic flatfish with plain grayish-brown coloration, fine scales, and a preference for cold muddy shelf and slope bottoms.
deepsea
Pacific Cod
A heavy-bodied, bottom-dwelling relative of the Atlantic Cod found across the cold North Pacific, recognized by its large head, chin barbel, and mottled brown coloring.
saltwater
Featherback Knifefish
A smaller, unspotted relative of the Clown Knifefish found across South and Southeast Asia, with a humped back and a single long fin running beneath its body.
freshwater
Blue Skate
One of the largest skates in the northeast Atlantic, now rare and heavily protected after historic overfishing collapsed its populations across much of its former range.
cartilaginous
Common Skate
One of the largest skates in the world, now Critically Endangered after severe historical overfishing across its North Atlantic range.
cartilaginous
Sand Tiger Shark
A bulky, fierce-looking but generally docile shark with protruding rows of needle-like teeth, commonly seen hovering near shipwrecks and reef caves along temperate and subtropical coastlines.
cartilaginous
Merry Widow
A small, peaceful Central American livebearer with a translucent grayish body and a distinctive dark spot near the gill cover, popular among hobbyists for decades.
freshwater
Comet Grouper
A pale grayish-brown Indo-Pacific grouper marked with elongated, comet-shaped pale streaks and spots, along with faint dark bands radiating from the eye.
reef
Immaculate Puffer
A plain, unmarked Indo-Pacific puffer with a smooth grayish-brown body, subtle pale belly, and dark rings around the eyes, often found over sandy and muddy coastal habitats.
saltwater
Potter's Angelfish
A small Hawaiian endemic dwarf angelfish, rusty orange with blue-grey and fine wavy blue lines.
reefViolet Goby
An eel-like burrowing goby with an iridescent violet-grey sheen and a large upturned mouth, found in muddy estuaries of the tropical Americas.
brackish
Northern Wolffish
The largest wolffish species, the Northern Wolffish is a plain grey-brown, deep-water predator of the North Atlantic and Arctic with powerful crushing jaws.
deepsea
Yellowbelly Damselfish
A small blue-grey damselfish with a bright yellow underside, found sheltering around coral and rubble on shallow reefs of the western Pacific.
reefKingfish
Kingfish, led by the Northern Kingfish, are silvery-grey surf-zone drums with a chin barbel and diagonal body bars, common along Atlantic beaches.
saltwater
Haddock
A slender, silvery-grey relative of the cod, easily recognized by a distinctive black lateral line and a dark thumbprint-like blotch above the pectoral fin.
saltwater
Gag Grouper
The gag grouper is an elongated, grey-brown grouper of the western Atlantic recognized by its faint worm-like markings and slender build compared to other groupers.
reef
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
Cottonmouth Jack
A plain, silvery-grey deep-water jack named for the pale interior of its mouth, found over continental shelves and slopes across tropical oceans worldwide.
pelagic
Ringtail Surgeonfish
A blue-grey Indo-Pacific tang identified by the narrow white ring encircling its tail base; common on coral and rocky reefs from East Africa to Hawaii.
reef
Bull Shark
A stocky, grey shark famous for its extreme tolerance of fresh and brackish water, allowing it to travel far up rivers and live in freshwater lakes far from the ocean.
cartilaginous
Boxfish
A rigid, box-shaped Indo-Pacific reef fish encased in fused bony plates; juveniles are bright yellow with black spots, dulling to olive-grey tones as adults.
reef
Rohu
A large South Asian river carp with a streamlined, silvery-grey body, widely farmed across the Indian subcontinent as a major aquaculture species and prized angling fish.
freshwater
Nile Perch
A large, silvery-grey freshwater predator with a distinctive dark eye and deep body, native to major African river systems and infamous for its ecological impact after introduction to Lake Victoria.
freshwater