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.
Salmon
A large anadromous fish that hatches in freshwater rivers, migrates to the ocean to mature, and returns upriver to spawn, prized as an iconic sport fish.
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
Ohio Lamprey
The Ohio lamprey is a parasitic, jawless fish native to medium and large rivers of the eastern United States, attaching to host fish with a toothed sucking disc to feed.
freshwater
Barreleye
The barreleye, or spookfish, is a deep-sea fish with a transparent, dome-shaped head revealing barrel-shaped, upward-rotating tubular eyes, unlike any other fish.
deepsea
Alligator Gar
A massive, armor-scaled freshwater fish with a broad alligator-like snout lined with two rows of sharp teeth, among the largest freshwater fish in North America.
freshwaterAtlantic Herring
A slender, silvery schooling fish that forms some of the largest shoals in the North Atlantic, feeding on plankton and serving as a key forage species for larger fish, seabirds, and marine mammals.
pelagic
Alaska Pollock
An abundant, silvery schooling fish of the cold North Pacific and Bering Sea, closely related to Atlantic Cod and among the most numerous commercially significant fish in the world.
saltwater
Longnose Gar
A slender, torpedo-shaped freshwater fish with an extremely long, narrow, tooth-lined snout, easily recognized among North American fish by its needle-like jaws.
freshwater
Fangtooth
The fangtooth is a small, deep-sea fish with the largest teeth relative to body size of any fish, identified by its oversized fangs, armored head, and compact dark body.
deepseaCusk Eel
An elongated, eel-shaped deep-sea fish whose family holds the record for the deepest fish ever documented, recovered from a trench nearly 8,400 meters down.
deepsea
Cornetfish
An extremely elongated, needle-thin fish with a whip-like tail filament, the Cornetfish hovers near reefs and seagrass, using its long tubular snout to snap up small fish.
reefSnailfish
A tadpole-shaped, scaleless fish family found from shallow tide pools to the deepest ocean trenches; hadal-zone species hold the record for the deepest fish ever observed.
deepsea
Peruvian Anchoveta
A small, slender schooling fish found in colossal numbers within the nutrient-rich Humboldt Current off Peru and Chile, considered one of the most abundant fish species on Earth.
pelagic
Largemouth Bass
A robust, olive-green freshwater fish with a distinctive dark lateral stripe and a very large mouth, one of North America's most popular sport fish now established worldwide.
freshwater
Cleaner Wrasse
The Cleaner Wrasse is a slender fish with a bold black horizontal stripe and blue body, famous for removing parasites and dead tissue from other reef fish at dedicated cleaning stations.
reef
Sea Lamprey
The sea lamprey is a primitive, jawless, eel-like fish famous for its parasitic sucker-disc mouth ringed with sharp teeth, which it uses to latch onto and feed on other fish.
saltwater
Honey Gourami
A small, peaceful South Asian labyrinth fish whose breeding males flush a warm honey-gold to orange color with a dark throat and belly, making it a popular gentle community fish.
freshwater
Atlantic Cod
A large, heavy-bodied bottom fish with a distinctive chin barbel and three dorsal fins, the Atlantic Cod is one of the North Atlantic's most historically significant and heavily studied fish species.
saltwater
Sturgeon
An ancient family of large, armored bony fish with bony scutes instead of scales and a shark-like barbeled snout. Sturgeon migrate between rivers and the sea to spawn and are among the most endangered fish groups.
brackish
Pacific Herring
A slender, silvery schooling fish closely related to the Atlantic Herring, found in cold coastal waters across the North Pacific, where it forms a critical forage base for fish, seabirds, and marine mammals.
pelagic
Senegal Bichir
An elongated, primitive-looking freshwater fish with a row of small spiny finlets along its back and paired lung-like breathing organs, retaining features from ancient ray-finned fish ancestors.
freshwater
Bluehead Wrasse
A small, abundant Caribbean reef fish famous for changing color and sex as it matures, with terminal males developing a striking blue head and green body. It is one of the most numerous fish on western Atlantic reefs.
reefSleeper Goby
A stout, goby-like estuarine fish that rests motionless on the bottom for long stretches, distinguished from true gobies by its separate (unfused) pelvic fins.
brackish
Japanese Anchovy
A small, abundant schooling fish found throughout the coastal waters of Japan, Korea, and China, the Japanese Anchovy is one of the most heavily fished species in the western Pacific and a vital link in regional marine food webs.
pelagic