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.
Mangrove Jack
A deep red Indo-Pacific snapper whose juveniles grow up in mangrove estuaries and rivers, tolerating salinities from freshwater to full seawater.
brackish
Sabertooth Fish
A slender deep-sea predator with oversized fang-like teeth and unusual tubular, upward-angled eyes that help it spot the silhouettes of prey against faint downwelling light.
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
Gold Gourami
A selectively bred, solid golden-yellow color variety of the Three Spot Gourami, developed for the aquarium trade and sharing the same hardy, adaptable biology as its wild-type relative.
freshwater
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
Alewife
A small, silvery anadromous herring native to the Atlantic coast of North America, recognizable by a single dark shoulder spot, that migrates from the ocean into freshwater rivers and lakes each spring to spawn.
brackish
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
Orange Chromide
A small, bright orange-yellow cichlid from South Asian estuaries, marked by a single dark spot near the tail. It is the smallest member of its genus and a popular, peaceful aquarium fish.
brackishPacific Sardine
A silvery, spot-flanked schooling fish found along the Pacific coast of North America, famous for boom-and-bust population cycles driven by shifting ocean temperatures and historically massive coastal schools.
pelagic
Banded Pipefish
The banded pipefish is a slender reef fish patterned with bold reddish-brown and white rings along its entire body, ending in a fan-shaped yellow tail fin marked with a dark spot.
reef
Round Goby
A bottom-dwelling goby native to the Black and Caspian Sea basins, now a widespread invasive species in the Great Lakes and parts of Europe, recognized by its fused pelvic fins and dark spot on the front dorsal fin.
freshwater
Midnight Parrotfish
A large, dark blue-black Caribbean parrotfish speckled with bright blue-green patches around the head.
reef
Atlantic Menhaden
A deep-bodied, oily, silvery schooling fish found in vast numbers along the U.S. Atlantic coast, notable for a large dark shoulder spot and its outsized ecological role as a filter-feeding forage species.
pelagic
Threadfin Trevally
An Indo-Pacific jack whose juveniles trail extraordinarily long thread-like fins, maturing into deep-bodied, steep-headed adults over sandy coastal bottoms and reef edges.
reef
African Pompano
A deep-bodied jack whose juveniles trail extraordinarily long fin filaments while drifting near floating debris, maturing into steep-headed adults over deep reefs and wrecks.
pelagic
Auratus Cichlid
A small, strikingly striped mbuna from Lake Malawi, the auratus cichlid reverses its coloration between sexes as it matures, with golden juveniles giving way to dark, aggressive adult males.
freshwater
Semicircle Angelfish
A large Indo-Pacific angelfish; adults are greenish-brown with blue-speckled fins and blue face lines.
reef
Potter's Angelfish
A small Hawaiian endemic dwarf angelfish, rusty orange with blue-grey and fine wavy blue lines.
reef
Lemonpeel Angelfish
A small, bright yellow Pacific dwarf angelfish with a blue ring around the eye and blue edging on the fins.
reef
Princess Parrotfish
A Caribbean parrotfish whose blue-green terminal males show bright orange and blue face stripes over a green body.
reef
Vermiculated Angelfish
A small pygmy-group angelfish with a bold yellow head, blue-black body etched with fine wavy vermiculated blue lines, commonly seen darting around coral rubble on Indo-Pacific reefs.
reef
Sand Seatrout
A pale, slender weakfish common in Gulf of Mexico bays and estuaries, closely related to spotted seatrout but lacking body spots.
brackish
Shortnose Gar
A slim-bodied gar of the Mississippi basin with the shortest, broadest snout of the North American gars, sparsely marked with dark spots.
freshwater
Pictus Catfish
A small, active South American catfish marked with dark spots over a silvery body and extremely long, trailing barbels.
freshwater