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.
Black Swallower
A small deep-sea fish renowned for an extraordinarily distensible stomach that lets it engulf prey several times its own body length and mass in a single strike.
deepsea
Madtom
A small North American freshwater catfish that hides under rocks by day and carries venomous pectoral and dorsal spines used defensively when handled or threatened.
freshwater
Atlantic Blue Marlin
A massive, powerful billfish of the open Atlantic, known for its cobalt-blue back, silvery flanks, and a long spear-like bill used to stun prey.
pelagic
Torpedo Ray
The largest of the electric rays, a powerful bottom-dweller capable of delivering an electric shock strong enough to stun sizeable fish.
cartilaginous
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.
pelagic
Stoplight Loosejaw
A deep-sea dragonfish with a hinge-less lower jaw and a rare ability to emit and see red bioluminescent light, invisible to most other deep-sea animals, effectively a private searchlight.
deepsea
Orangespine Unicornfish
A hornless unicornfish marked by a black eye mask, yellow dorsal stripe, and vivid orange blade-like spines at the tail base; common on shallow Indo-Pacific reefs.
reef
Unicornfish
A large gray-brown surgeonfish named for the forward-pointing bony horn projecting from its forehead, an important herbivore grazing tough brown algae on Indo-Pacific reef flats.
reef
Bullhead Catfish
A hardy, whiskered bottom-dweller with a rounded tail and mottled brown skin, thriving in muddy, low-oxygen ponds and slow streams across North America.
freshwater
China Rockfish
Easily recognized by a bold yellow stripe running down its black body, the China rockfish is a small, secretive reef dweller of the northeastern Pacific.
saltwater
Sockeye Salmon
A Pacific salmon renowned for its brilliant crimson spawning coloration and strong dependence on lake habitat during its freshwater juvenile stage.
freshwater
Bristol Bay Sockeye
Bristol Bay sockeye are the world's largest wild sockeye salmon run, turning brilliant red with olive-green heads as they surge from the Bering Sea into Alaska's rivers to spawn.
freshwater
African Arowana
A large African bonytongue fish with a toothless, filter-feeding mouth adapted for straining plankton and detritus from floodplain waters.
freshwater
Silver Aba
A tail-less, eel-shaped African fish that swims by rippling a long dorsal fin and generates a weak electric field to sense its surroundings.
freshwater
Snowflake Moray
The Snowflake Moray is a mottled black-and-yellow reef eel with blunt, crushing teeth adapted for feeding on crabs and shrimp rather than fish.
reef
Blackstripe Topminnow
A slender freshwater killifish of the central and eastern U.S., identified by a single solid black stripe running from snout to tail. It inhabits quiet pools and slow stream reaches.
freshwater
Whitecheek Tang
A dark brown to black surgeonfish set apart by a bright white patch beneath the eye and a narrow orange tail band, commonly seen grazing rubble zones on Indo-Pacific reefs.
reef
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.
saltwater
Flame Hawkfish
A brilliant red-orange reef fish that perches motionless atop branching coral, darting out to ambush small prey.
reef
Snowy Grouper
A dark gray-brown deepwater grouper of the western Atlantic; juveniles are boldly marked with white spots that fade to a plainer, darker pattern in large adults.
deepsea
Lake Trout
A large, deep-lake char native to cold northern North American waters, marked by pale spots on a dark greenish-gray body and a deeply forked tail. It typically inhabits the coldest, deepest zones of large lakes.
freshwater
Turquoise Killifish
A vividly colored annual killifish from southeastern Africa's temporary pools, notable for having the shortest lifespan of any known vertebrate, typically just a few months in the wild.
freshwater
Australian Lungfish
One of the most primitive living fish, this large freshwater species has a single lung, paddle-like fins, and a lineage that has remained largely unchanged for over 100 million years.
freshwater
Marlin
A large, powerful open-ocean billfish with a long rounded spear-like bill and a tall crested back, prized as one of the ocean's fastest and most sought-after game fish.
pelagic