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.
Gulf Flounder
A left-eyed flatfish common along the Gulf of Mexico and southeastern Atlantic coast, marked by three distinctive eyespots arranged in a triangle.
saltwater
Giant Mudskipper
The largest common mudskipper species, a heavy-bodied, predatory amphibious goby that patrols mangrove mudflats across South and Southeast Asia.
brackish
Blackbarred Halfbeak
A silvery halfbeak marked with faint dark vertical bars, common over seagrass beds and reef flats across the Indo-Pacific.
reef
Undulated Moray
A common Indo-Pacific reef moray with bold wavy, maze-like dark markings over a pale body, often seen with its head poking from reef crevices.
reef
Spotfin Flyingfish
A slender, dark-backed flyingfish with long, spotted pectoral "wings" that let it glide above the ocean surface to escape predators. Common throughout tropical and warm-temperate seas worldwide.
pelagic
Sheepshead Bream
The sheepshead bream, or white seabream, is a silvery sparid marked by dark vertical bars and a black tail-base spot, common over rocky reefs and seagrass in the Mediterranean and eastern Atlantic.
reef
Black Sea Bass
A stocky, dark-bodied grouper relative common on rocky reefs and wrecks along the temperate western Atlantic coast, easily recognized by its high arched back and blunt head.
reef
Yellowtail Blue Damselfish
A small, vividly electric-blue damselfish with a sharply contrasting bright yellow tail, common on shallow reef flats and lagoons of the western Pacific.
reef
Staghorn Sculpin
A common bottom-dwelling sculpin of Pacific coast bays and estuaries, named for the large branching (antler-like) spine on its gill cover.
brackish
Silver Bream
A silvery European freshwater fish with notably large, protruding eyes, often confused with young Common Bream but distinguished by its larger scales.
freshwater
Sergeant Major
A common silvery damselfish marked with five bold black vertical bars, resembling military rank stripes, found on shallow tropical reefs.
reef
Powder Blue Tang
A vivid powder-blue surgeonfish with a black facial mask and white throat patch, common on shallow reef edges across the Indian Ocean.
reef
Pouting
Also called bib, the Pouting is a deep-bodied, coppery-bronze gadoid common around rocky reefs and wrecks of the northeastern Atlantic and Mediterranean.
saltwater
Mediterranean Flyingfish
The most common flyingfish of the Mediterranean Sea, with long, mottled pectoral fins and a slender body built for gliding above coastal pelagic waters.
pelagic
Green Terror
A robust, iridescent-green South American cichlid whose bold turquoise spangling and feisty temperament earned it its combative common name.
freshwater
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
White Crappie
A silvery, deep-bodied panfish with faint vertical bars along its sides, common in reservoirs and turbid rivers of the central United States and prized for its schooling habits and delicate mouth.
freshwater
Reef Shark
A common, streamlined shark patrolling Indo-Pacific coral reefs, recognized by its broad black-edged tail fin and stout gray body.
reefHardhead Catfish
A common western Atlantic sea catfish with a bony plate on its head, short barbels, and a mouthbrooding reproductive strategy shared with related sea catfish.
saltwaterKingfish
Kingfish, led by the Northern Kingfish, are silvery-grey surf-zone drums with a chin barbel and diagonal body bars, common along Atlantic beaches.
saltwater
Green Jack
The Green Jack is a schooling eastern Pacific jack with a greenish-blue back, silvery sides, and yellowish lower fins, common in coastal surface waters.
pelagicFantail Sole
A right-eyed Pacific flatfish named for its broadly rounded, fan-like tail, common on sandy bottoms from California to Baja California.
saltwater
Tomtate
A small silvery grunt common over reefs and hard-bottom habitats of the western Atlantic, recognized by a dark blotch near the base of its tail fin.
reef
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