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 Chimaera
A deep-water cartilaginous fish related to sharks, marked by an unmistakably long pointed snout and a slender tapering body cruising continental slopes far below sunlight.
cartilaginous
Long-spined Porcupinefish
The Long-spined Porcupinefish is a spiny, balloon-shaped fish that can inflate its body dramatically, erecting long, permanently attached spines as a defense against predators.
reef
Spotted Scat
A deep-bodied, disc-shaped fish covered in dark spots over an olive-to-silver background, common in Indo-Pacific estuaries and harbors. Its bold pattern and spiny dorsal fin make it easy to pick out among schooling brackish fish.
brackish
Stoplight Parrotfish
A common Caribbean reef fish whose terminal-phase males show brilliant green bodies with a distinctive yellow spot at the tail base resembling a stoplight.
reef
Grouper
A heavy-bodied reef predator with a large mouth and mottled camouflage pattern, known for lying in wait near reef structure before ambushing fish and crustaceans.
reef
Red Grouper
The red grouper is a heavy-bodied, reddish-brown reef fish common on rocky and coral bottoms of the Gulf of Mexico and western Atlantic, known for excavating shallow depressions in sediment.
reef
Deep-sea Smelt
A small, silvery-bodied deep-sea fish that drifts through the dark midwater zone feeding on tiny plankton, forming a key link in deep ocean food webs.
deepsea
Bluestriped Grunt
A vividly striped Caribbean reef fish with a bright yellow body crossed by narrow electric-blue lines, often seen in dense daytime schools beneath reef ledges.
reef
Trumpetfish
A long, tube-bodied ambush predator that hovers motionless among reef structures, often drifting vertically to mimic a stray branch or gorgonian coral before striking small fish.
reef
Rainbow Runner
A slender, torpedo-bodied jack with two vivid blue-green stripes, found roaming warm oceans worldwide, often trailing larger pelagic fish like tuna and sharks.
pelagic
Common Carp
A large, hardy, bottom-feeding fish native to Eurasia and now found worldwide, recognizable by its stout body, barbels, and long dorsal fin, and the wild ancestor of ornamental koi.
freshwater
Russian Sturgeon
The Russian sturgeon is a large, critically endangered anadromous fish of the Caspian, Black, and Azov Sea basins, known for its short blunt snout and robust armored body.
brackish
Scaled Sardine
A small, deep-bodied silvery fish that forms dense inshore schools along the Western Atlantic coast, easily confused with other small herring-like species.
saltwater
Piranha
A deep-bodied South American river fish famed for its sharp interlocking teeth and coordinated group feeding behavior, though most species are opportunistic scavengers.
freshwater
Lanternfish
Lanternfish are small, extremely abundant mesopelagic fish found worldwide, recognized by rows of light-producing photophores along their silvery bodies and large low-light eyes.
deepsea
Gulf Menhaden
A deep-bodied, oily-scaled herring relative that forms enormous schools in Gulf of Mexico estuaries, playing a major role as a forage fish in coastal food webs.
brackish
European Anchovy
A slender, small-bodied schooling fish with a distinctive pointed snout and underslung mouth, found in enormous shoals along European and North African coasts and throughout the Mediterranean.
pelagic
Delhezi Bichir
A boldly barred Congo Basin fish with a series of dark vertical bands along its yellow-tan body and a row of spiny finlets along its back.
freshwaterBigfin Squid Fish
Despite the common name, this is not a true fish but a rarely filmed deep-sea cephalopod, famous for extraordinarily long elbowed arms trailing beneath a small gelatinous body.
deepsea
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
Antarctic Cod
Antarctic cod is a bottom-dwelling notothenioid fish of the Southern Ocean, adapted to near-freezing water and recognized by its mottled brown, camouflaged body and broad head.
saltwater
Round Herring
Named for its unusually rounded, cylindrical body, the Round Herring is a schooling coastal pelagic fish found in temperate and subtropical seas worldwide, serving as an important forage species for larger predators.
pelagic
Pufferfish
A slow-swimming reef fish famous for inflating its body into a spiny ball when threatened, using a fused beak-like set of teeth to feed on hard-shelled invertebrates and algae.
reef
Lawnmower Blenny
The Lawnmower Blenny is a mottled brown-and-cream reef fish with a stocky body and comb-like teeth, known for grazing algae off rock and rubble surfaces on shallow Indo-Pacific reefs.
reef