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.
Blue Marlin
A massive, cobalt-blue billfish with a long spear-like bill, the Blue Marlin is one of the fastest and largest predators of the open tropical ocean.
pelagicBluntnose Flyingfish
A small flyingfish with a short, blunt snout and large wing-like pectoral fins, gliding above the open tropical Atlantic.
pelagic
Threadfin Rainbowfish
A tiny, delicate rainbowfish famed for the male's elongated, thread-like extensions on the dorsal and anal fins that trail behind the body.
freshwater
Sailfin Tang
A striped surgeonfish famous for its oversized, sail-like dorsal and anal fins, common on Indo-Pacific coral reefs.
reef
Pike Livebearer
A large, elongated predatory livebearer from Central America with a pike-like head and mouth built for ambushing small fish.
freshwater
Greenland Shark
A massive, slow-moving Arctic shark believed to be the longest-lived vertebrate on Earth, with lifespans possibly exceeding 250 years.
deepsea
Hogfish
A large western-Atlantic wrasse with a pig-like snout and long front dorsal spines, able to rapidly change color.
reef
Yucatan Molly
A large sailfin livebearer native to the coastal waters of the Yucatan Peninsula, known for the male's dramatically tall, sail-like dorsal fin used in courtship.
brackish
Reedfish
A snake-bodied African fish with a lung-like breathing organ, related to bichirs, prized for its unusual elongated form and air-breathing ability.
freshwater
Pigfish
A grunt of Atlantic and Gulf coast estuaries, marked by diagonal rows of small blue and gold spots and named for its pig-like grunting sound.
brackish
Loach Goby
The Loach Goby is an elongated, flat-bodied fish that clings to rocks in fast-flowing Indo-Pacific streams, combining goby and loach-like features.
freshwater
Indo-Pacific Sailfish
The Indo-Pacific sailfish is a large, streamlined billfish famed for its towering, sail-like dorsal fin and status as one of the fastest fish in the ocean.
pelagic
Leopard Coral Grouper
A striking Indo-Pacific reef predator with a reddish-orange body densely covered in small electric-blue spots, giving it a leopard-like pattern.
reef
Guitarfish
A shark-like ray with a flattened, guitar-shaped body that blends features of sharks and rays, common on sandy coastal seabeds of the eastern Atlantic and Mediterranean.
cartilaginous
Garfish
A long, silvery, needle-jawed fish of European coastal waters, instantly recognizable by its bright green backbone and slender, beak-like snout.
pelagic
Frigate Mackerel
A small tuna-like fish with a distinctive dark, wavy tiger-stripe pattern on its upper back, found in warm oceanic waters worldwide.
pelagic
Garden Eel
Garden Eels are slender, colony-forming eels that live permanently anchored in sandy burrows near reefs, swaying in the current as they catch drifting plankton.
reefFantail Sole
A right-eyed Pacific flatfish named for its broadly rounded, fan-like tail, common on sandy bottoms from California to Baja California.
saltwater
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
Goblin Shark
A rare, pink-skinned deep-sea shark with a long, blade-like snout and jaws that shoot forward to snatch prey in an instant.
deepsea
Atlantic Wolffish
A large, eel-like cold-water fish with powerful crushing jaws, sheltering solitarily in rocky dens across the North Atlantic.
saltwater
Port Jackson Shark
A distinctive, slow-moving Australian bullhead shark with a blunt pig-like snout, bold harness-shaped markings, and blunt crushing teeth for eating shellfish.
saltwater
Roosterfish
An unmistakable eastern Pacific game fish named for the tall comb-like spines of its dorsal fin, which it raises above the water while hunting.
saltwater
French Angelfish
A large Caribbean reef angelfish with a jet-black body edged in bright yellow on each scale, giving adults a shimmering, chain-mail-like appearance.
reef