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.
Longnose Hawkfish
A red-and-white lattice-patterned hawkfish with an unmistakable elongated snout, perched motionlessly on gorgonian sea fans across the Indo-Pacific.
reef
Yellowfin Croaker
A silvery drum common in Pacific surf zones, recognized by faint diagonal lines along its flanks and yellow-tinted fins.
saltwater
White Seabass
The White Seabass is a large Pacific coast drum with a bluish-bronze back and silvery sides, closely associated with California's kelp forests.
saltwaterWhite Croaker
The White Croaker is a pale, silvery-brassy sciaenid common in shallow Pacific coastal waters from British Columbia to Baja California.
saltwater
Bluebanded Sea Bream
An Indo-Pacific reef fish, actually a snapper, marked by diagonal electric-blue bands on yellow and trailing fin filaments in adults.
reef
Blackbarred Halfbeak
A silvery halfbeak marked with faint dark vertical bars, common over seagrass beds and reef flats across the Indo-Pacific.
reef
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.
reef
Spotted Croaker
A large Indo-Pacific drum with scattered dark spots along its silvery back, common in turbid estuaries and river mouths.
brackish
Naso Tang
A large surgeonfish with bright orange lips and a yellow tail-base marking, grazing algae along Indo-Pacific reef slopes.
reef
Chum Salmon
A large, widely distributed Pacific salmon known for the bold calico-patterned stripes and blotches that spawning adults develop along their flanks.
freshwater
Yellowtail Blue Damselfish
A small, vividly electric-blue damselfish with a sharply contrasting bright yellow tail, common on shallow reef flats and lagoons of the western Pacific.
reefPygmy Goby
One of the smallest vertebrates on Earth, this minute translucent goby perches in crevices on Indo-Pacific coral reefs and has an extraordinarily short lifespan.
reef
Staghorn Sculpin
A common bottom-dwelling sculpin of Pacific coast bays and estuaries, named for the large branching (antler-like) spine on its gill cover.
brackish
Sockeye Salmon
A Pacific salmon renowned for its brilliant crimson spawning coloration and strong dependence on lake habitat during its freshwater juvenile stage.
freshwater
Narrow-barred Spanish Mackerel
A large, fast-swimming mackerel of the Indo-Pacific marked by numerous narrow, wavy dark bars running down its silvery sides.
pelagic
Japanese Eel
The Japanese Eel is an East Asian catadromous fish that migrates from freshwater rivers to offshore Pacific spawning grounds, and is now classified as Endangered.
freshwater
Camouflage Grouper
A stocky, well-camouflaged Indo-Pacific grouper with a mottled brown-and-tan pattern of hexagonal blotches that helps it blend seamlessly into reef substrate.
reef
Cabezon
The cabezon is the largest sculpin of the North American Pacific coast, a heavily mottled, scaleless ambush predator that blends into rocky reef and kelp habitat.
saltwater
Zebra Moray
The Zebra Moray is a striped Indo-Pacific reef eel with blunt, peg-like teeth specialized for crushing crabs, mollusks, and sea urchins.
reef
Stonefish
The estuarine stonefish is a heavily camouflaged, warty bottom-dweller of Indo-Pacific mudflats and estuaries, considered one of the most venomous fish known.
brackish
Threespot Dascyllus
A robust black-bodied damselfish bearing three white spots in youth, one of the most widespread dascyllus species on Indo-Pacific reefs.
reef
Saddleback Clownfish
A dark, saddle-marked clownfish that shelters among the tentacles of large sea anemones on sandy reef slopes and lagoons across the Indo-Pacific.
reef
Black Marlin
A massive, powerful billfish of the Indo-Pacific known for its rigid, immovable pectoral fins and status as one of the largest bony fish in the ocean.
pelagic
Bluefin Trevally
A vividly colored reef jack covered in electric-blue spots, with matching blue fins, patrolling coral reefs across the Indo-Pacific.
reef