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.
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
Sockeye Salmon
A Pacific salmon renowned for its brilliant crimson spawning coloration and strong dependence on lake habitat during its freshwater juvenile stage.
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
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
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
African Arowana
A large African bonytongue fish with a toothless, filter-feeding mouth adapted for straining plankton and detritus from floodplain waters.
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
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
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
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
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
Flame Hawkfish
A brilliant red-orange reef fish that perches motionless atop branching coral, darting out to ambush small prey.
reef
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
Worm Pipefish
A tiny, tailless pipefish that hides among seaweed and rock-pool fronds along European rocky shores, resembling a thin brown worm more than a typical fish.
saltwater