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.
Smalltooth Sawfish
A Critically Endangered ray-relative with a long, tooth-lined saw-like snout, once common in warm western Atlantic coastal waters but now greatly reduced in range.
cartilaginousSpotted Moray
A pale, leopard-patterned eel of Caribbean and western Atlantic reefs, its cream body densely covered in dark brown blotches that give it a mottled, sponge-like appearance.
reef
Spotted Scorpionfish
A heavily camouflaged reef fish with mottled brown, red, and white patterning and venomous dorsal spines, blending seamlessly into coral rubble and rocky bottom across the western Atlantic.
reef
Red Grouper
The red grouper is a heavy-bodied, reddish-brown reef fish common on rocky and coral bottoms of the Gulf of Mexico and western Atlantic, known for excavating shallow depressions in sediment.
reef
Redbanded Seabream
The redbanded seabream is a deep-bodied, pinkish-red sparid marked by four to five dark vertical bands, found over rocky and sandy bottoms in the eastern Atlantic and Mediterranean.
saltwater
Pacific Red Snapper
A bright reddish-pink snapper of rocky reefs along the Eastern Pacific coast from Mexico to Peru, closely resembling its Atlantic namesake but found in a different ocean.
reef
Mummichog
A stout, hardy killifish common in salt marshes and estuaries along the North American Atlantic coast, well known for its extreme tolerance of changing salinity and oxygen levels.
brackish
Greenland Halibut
A cold-water, deep-sea North Atlantic and Arctic flatfish with a dark body on both sides, a large toothy mouth, and a less flattened posture than typical flounders.
deepsea
Goldsinny Wrasse
A small reddish-brown wrasse marked by a black tail-base spot, the Goldsinny Wrasse patrols rocky Atlantic reefs and is known for picking parasites off other fish.
saltwater
Graysby
The graysby is a small, reddish-brown reef grouper of the tropical western Atlantic, densely covered in pale spots and marked with a few larger dark blotches along its back.
reefWitch Flounder
A slender, tongue-shaped deep-water North Atlantic flatfish with plain grayish-brown coloration, fine scales, and a preference for cold muddy shelf and slope bottoms.
deepsea
White Hake
White hake is a large, elongated cod relative of the western North Atlantic shelf and slope, larger and grayer than red hake, with long pelvic fin filaments.
saltwater
Tiger Grouper
The tiger grouper is a slender reef grouper of the tropical western Atlantic marked with diagonal dark bars on a pale to reddish-brown body, resembling tiger-like striping.
reef
Scaled Sardine
A small, deep-bodied silvery fish that forms dense inshore schools along the Western Atlantic coast, easily confused with other small herring-like species.
saltwater
Hake
A slender, silvery predatory fish with a large toothy mouth and two widely separated dorsal fins, Hake patrol continental shelf waters of the northeastern Atlantic and Mediterranean.
saltwater
Goliath Grouper
One of the largest bony fish on Atlantic reefs, the goliath grouper is a massive, mottled brown ambush predator that shelters around wrecks, caves, and mangrove-lined shorelines.
reef
Blue Skate
One of the largest skates in the northeast Atlantic, now rare and heavily protected after historic overfishing collapsed its populations across much of its former range.
cartilaginous
Banded Rudderfish
A western Atlantic jack whose boldly banded juveniles shelter beneath floating debris, later maturing into plainer, olive-silvery adults resembling small amberjacks.
saltwater
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
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.
reefRock Gunnel
A slender, eel-like intertidal fish of the North Atlantic, the Rock Gunnel hides under rocks and seaweed and is marked by a row of pale-ringed spots along its dorsal fin.
saltwater
Eastern Mosquitofish
Native to the Atlantic coastal plain of the eastern United States, the eastern mosquitofish is nearly identical to its western relative and has likewise been widely introduced worldwide for mosquito control.
freshwater
Cubera Snapper
The largest snapper in the Atlantic, a heavy-bodied reef predator with oversized canine teeth. Adults hold near deep ledges and wrecks, while juveniles grow up in mangrove nurseries.
reef
Coney
The coney is a small, color-variable reef grouper of the tropical western Atlantic, occurring in reddish-brown, bicolor, or bright golden-yellow forms, always marked with fine blue spotting.
reef