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.
Croaking Gourami
A small Southeast Asian gourami capable of producing an audible croaking sound using modified pectoral fin muscles, marked with iridescent blue-green stripes and spots along a brownish body.
freshwater
Chain Pickerel
A slender, elongated ambush predator with a distinctive dark chain-like pattern over green sides, common in weedy lakes and sluggish rivers of the eastern United States.
freshwater
Burbot
The burbot is the only fully freshwater member of the cod family, an eel-shaped, mottled predator found in cold lakes and rivers across the Northern Hemisphere.
freshwater
California Scorpionfish
A mottled reddish-brown scorpionfish of the California coast, camouflaged against rocky and sandy bottoms and equipped with venomous spines along its dorsal fin.
saltwater
Candiru
A tiny, translucent Amazonian catfish that feeds by attaching to the gills of larger fish and consuming their blood, one of the few parasitic vertebrates known.
freshwater
Blackwing Flyingfish
A stocky, wide-ranging flyingfish named for its large dusky-black pectoral wings, found gliding above open ocean surface waters across much of the world's warm and temperate seas.
pelagic
Black Molly
A solid-black, selectively bred color strain of the common molly, the black molly is one of the most recognizable and widely kept aquarium livebearers.
freshwater
Bichir
The bichir is a primitive, air-breathing freshwater fish of African rivers and swamps, genus Polypterus, known for its snake-like armored body and spiny dorsal finlets.
freshwater
Banded Archerfish
A silvery, deep-bodied fish famous for spitting jets of water to knock insects off overhanging vegetation into the water below. Bold dark bands and a flattened, upturned mouth make it easy to recognize.
brackish
Atlantic Flyingfish
A streamlined, silvery flyingfish of the tropical Atlantic that uses its oversized wing-like pectoral fins to glide over the surface for long distances to escape predators.
pelagic
Hogchoker
A small, tough-skinned estuarine sole tolerant of fresh to salt water, with a mottled brown crossbanded body, rounded outline, and no visible pectoral fins.
brackishFlowerhorn
A vividly colored, artificially bred cichlid hybrid famous for its bulbous head hump and bold markings, with no wild ancestral population.
freshwater
Peacock Cichlid
A brilliantly colored Lake Malawi cichlid whose males flash iridescent blues, oranges, and yellows to attract mates and rivals alike.
freshwater
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
Asian Arowana
A large, brightly colored freshwater fish prized for its metallic scales and dragon-like appearance, native to Southeast Asian rivers and now considered endangered in the wild.
freshwater
Atlantic Wolffish
A large, eel-like cold-water fish with powerful crushing jaws, sheltering solitarily in rocky dens across the North Atlantic.
saltwaterSpaghetti Eel
An extremely thin, worm-like burrowing eel that spends most of its life buried in sandy or muddy estuarine bottoms across the Indo-Pacific, rarely seen in the open.
brackish
Redfish
A coppery-bronze estuarine predator famous for the large black eyespot near its tail, the Redfish is a mainstay of shallow coastal flats along the Gulf and southeastern Atlantic coasts.
brackish
Oarfish
An extraordinarily long, silver, ribbon-shaped deep-sea fish with a red crest and trailing fin rays, rarely seen alive at the surface and among the longest bony fish known.
deepsea
Dojo Loach
An elongated, whiskered East Asian loach, sold in the aquarium and pond trade under the Japanese name 'dojo,' known for burrowing in soft mud and tolerating cold water.
freshwater
Coelacanth
The coelacanth is an ancient, deep-dwelling lobe-finned fish once known only from fossils, famously rediscovered alive off South Africa in 1938.
deepsea
Chinese Paddlefish
The Chinese paddlefish was a giant, sword-snouted freshwater fish once found in the Yangtze River, declared extinct in the early 2020s after decades of decline.
freshwater
Neon Goby
A tiny reef fish with an electric blue stripe running nose to tail, best known for cleaning parasites off larger reef fish.
reef
Silver Scat
A disc-shaped, silvery fish marked with dark vertical bars, found schooling in brackish estuaries and mangroves across the Indo-Pacific and northern Australia.
brackish