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.
Dragon Goby
The Dragon Goby is a long, eel-like fish with a violet sheen and a large upturned mouth, found burrowing in muddy estuaries along the Americas' Atlantic coast.
brackish
Bonefish
A silvery, torpedo-shaped fish of shallow tropical flats, nicknamed the 'grey ghost' for its uncanny ability to vanish against sandy bottoms.
saltwater
Palette Surgeonfish
The vivid blue-and-black Blue Tang, famous for its palette-shaped markings and bright yellow tail; an Indo-Pacific coral reef species that feeds mainly on drifting plankton rather than algae.
reef
Tub Gurnard
The largest common European gurnard, with a reddish armored body and enormous, brilliantly blue-green pectoral fins that it spreads when disturbed.
saltwater
Peacock Flounder
A tropical Atlantic flatfish famous for rapid color-changing camouflage and a pattern of small blue rings on a sandy brown body, with both eyes clustered on its upper left side.
reef
Japanese Halfbeak
A slim, silvery surface fish with a long lower jaw, common in coastal and brackish waters around Japan, Korea, and China.
brackish
Harlequin Rasbora
A small, deep-bodied freshwater fish with a coppery-orange body and a distinctive black triangular patch covering the rear half, native to the blackwater streams of Southeast Asia.
freshwater
Discus
A round, flattened Amazonian cichlid prized for its vivid patterns and colors, considered one of the most striking freshwater aquarium fish and a demanding species to keep well.
freshwaterSleeper Goby
A stout, goby-like estuarine fish that rests motionless on the bottom for long stretches, distinguished from true gobies by its separate (unfused) pelvic fins.
brackish
Spot Croaker
Spot is a small, deep-bodied estuarine fish easily identified by a single dark shoulder spot and faint oblique bars along its upper body.
brackish
River Lamprey
The river lamprey, also known as the lampern, is a small anadromous European lamprey that feeds parasitically on fish in coastal and estuarine waters before migrating into rivers to spawn.
brackish
Spotted Wolffish
A large, deep-water wolffish covered in bold dark spots, found in cold Arctic and North Atlantic waters on rocky and gravel seafloor.
deepsea
Mudskipper
An amphibious goby that spends much of its life out of water, hopping across mudflats on muscular pectoral fins. Bulging, periscope-like eyes let it watch for predators while it hunts and defends its burrow.
brackishGuppy
A small livebearing fish native to northeastern South America, famous for the males' vividly colored, ornately shaped tails and its worldwide popularity in the aquarium hobby.
freshwater
Black Ghost Knifefish
A uniformly black, blade-shaped freshwater fish that swims using a long undulating ventral fin and navigates using a weak electric field generated along its body.
freshwater
Arowana
The arowana is a large, ancient freshwater fish of the Amazon basin, genus Osteoglossum, known for its upturned mouth, long fins, and ability to leap for surface prey.
freshwater
Telescopefish
A slender deep-sea fish named for its forward-directed, tubular telescoping eyes, which provide sharp binocular vision to detect faint prey silhouettes in near-total darkness.
deepsea
Silver Arowana
A large, elongated freshwater fish with metallic silver scales and an upturned mouth, famous for leaping from the water surface to snatch insects and small prey.
freshwater
Margined Flyingfish
A large flyingfish with dark, blue-margined wing-like pectoral fins that glides across open tropical and subtropical seas.
pelagic
Midas Cichlid
A large, variably colored Central American cichlid, ranging from mottled gray to solid gold-orange, known for its bold and often combative nature.
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
Meagre
The Meagre is a large, golden-silver sciaenid of the eastern Atlantic and Mediterranean, among the biggest members of the drum family.
saltwater
Freshwater Butterflyfish
The freshwater butterflyfish is a surface-dwelling African fish with huge wing-like pectoral fins that let it glide above the water to snatch insects, giving it its butterfly-like name.
freshwater
Emperor Tetra
A refined, violet-blue tetra from Colombia known for a bold black lateral stripe and males' elongated, sword-like central tail rays.
freshwater