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.
Bumblebee Goby
The Bumblebee Goby is a tiny, boldly banded fish resembling its namesake insect, found in brackish mangrove and estuarine waters of Southeast Asia.
brackish
Black Ghost Knifefish
A uniformly black, blade-shaped freshwater fish that swims using a long undulating ventral fin and navigates using a weak electric field generated along its body.
freshwater
Atlantic Needlefish
A long, slender silvery fish with a needle-like toothy beak, common in coastal and estuarine waters of the western Atlantic where it hunts small fish near the surface.
brackish
Arowana
The arowana is a large, ancient freshwater fish of the Amazon basin, genus Osteoglossum, known for its upturned mouth, long fins, and ability to leap for surface prey.
freshwater
Telescopefish
A slender deep-sea fish named for its forward-directed, tubular telescoping eyes, which provide sharp binocular vision to detect faint prey silhouettes in near-total darkness.
deepsea
Silver Arowana
A large, elongated freshwater fish with metallic silver scales and an upturned mouth, famous for leaping from the water surface to snatch insects and small prey.
freshwater
Narrow-barred Spanish Mackerel
A large, fast-swimming mackerel of the Indo-Pacific marked by numerous narrow, wavy dark bars running down its silvery sides.
pelagic
Meagre
The Meagre is a large, golden-silver sciaenid of the eastern Atlantic and Mediterranean, among the biggest members of the drum family.
saltwater
Margined Flyingfish
A large flyingfish with dark, blue-margined wing-like pectoral fins that glides across open tropical and subtropical seas.
pelagic
Midas Cichlid
A large, variably colored Central American cichlid, ranging from mottled gray to solid gold-orange, known for its bold and often combative nature.
freshwater
Freshwater Butterflyfish
The freshwater butterflyfish is a surface-dwelling African fish with huge wing-like pectoral fins that let it glide above the water to snatch insects, giving it its butterfly-like name.
freshwater
Emperor Tetra
A refined, violet-blue tetra from Colombia known for a bold black lateral stripe and males' elongated, sword-like central tail rays.
freshwater
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
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
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.
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