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.
Sawfish
A critically endangered ray with a long, tooth-lined snout resembling a saw, used to detect and strike schooling fish in shallow tropical waters.
cartilaginous
Red Drum
The Red Drum is a coppery-bronze coastal fish of the western Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico, best known for the dark eyespot near its tail.
brackish
Japanese Eel
The Japanese Eel is an East Asian catadromous fish that migrates from freshwater rivers to offshore Pacific spawning grounds, and is now classified as Endangered.
freshwater
Common Dragonet
A sand-dwelling northeastern Atlantic fish with striking sexual dimorphism, males growing a dramatically elongated dorsal fin and long tail streamers.
saltwater
Bloodfin Tetra
A slim silvery tetra with bright red fins, prized as a hardy, active schooling fish that tolerates cooler water than most tropicals.
freshwater
Banded Gourami
A hardy South Asian labyrinth fish known for its diagonal orange-blue stripes and ability to gulp air in oxygen-poor water.
freshwater
Atlantic Croaker
The Atlantic Croaker is a silvery-bronze estuarine fish with a single chin barbel and faint wavy mottling, abundant along the western Atlantic coast.
brackishAtlantic Silverside
A slender, schooling coastal fish common along the western Atlantic shoreline, marked by a bright silver stripe running down each flank.
brackish
Wahoo
One of the fastest fish in the ocean, the Wahoo is a slender, torpedo-shaped predator with iridescent blue-green tiger stripes, found in warm seas worldwide.
pelagic
Shovelnose Sturgeon
The shovelnose sturgeon is the smallest and most abundant North American sturgeon, a slender river fish with a flattened snout and a thin whip-like tail filament.
freshwater
Mola Mola
The heaviest bony fish in the world, an enormous, flattened, disc-shaped giant that appears to be missing a tail, often seen basking sideways at the ocean's surface.
pelagic
Flounder
A flatfish with both eyes on its upper side that lies camouflaged against sandy or muddy bottoms, ambushing small fish and invertebrates that pass overhead.
saltwater
Golden Wonder Killifish
A golden-orange color form of the striped panchax, this hardy topminnow patrols the water's surface hunting insects and small fish in South Asian wetlands.
freshwater
Garibaldi
A large, brilliant orange damselfish and the official marine state fish of California, found among rocky reefs and kelp forests of the temperate northeast Pacific.
reef
European Sea Bass
The European sea bass is a sleek, silvery predator common along European and North African coasts, prized by anglers as a hard-fighting sport fish.
saltwater
Bull Rout
Known as the shorthorn sculpin elsewhere, the Bull Rout is a camouflaged, spiny-headed fish common in cold North Atlantic tide pools and rocky shores.
saltwater
Clown Knifefish
A knife-shaped Southeast Asian fish with a distinctive row of large black eyespots along its rear body and a long, continuous ventral fin.
freshwater
Blacktip Shark
A fast, energetic coastal shark named for the black tips on most of its fins, often seen leaping and spinning while chasing schooling fish.
saltwater
Arapaima
One of the largest freshwater fish in the world, this massive Amazonian species has thick armor-like scales and must surface periodically to breathe air.
freshwater
Whale Shark
The largest fish in the world, a gentle filter-feeding shark covered in a distinctive checkerboard pattern of pale spots and stripes, found in warm seas worldwide.
cartilaginous
Silver Aba
A tail-less, eel-shaped African fish that swims by rippling a long dorsal fin and generates a weak electric field to sense its surroundings.
freshwater
Sea Hagfish
The sea hagfish is a primitive, eel-shaped jawless fish that scavenges on the deep, cold seafloor of the North Atlantic and produces enormous amounts of defensive slime.
deepsea
Reedfish
A snake-bodied African fish with a lung-like breathing organ, related to bichirs, prized for its unusual elongated form and air-breathing ability.
freshwater
Purple Spotted Gudgeon
A stocky, olive-brown Australian freshwater fish covered in scattered iridescent purple-blue spots, favoring weedy, slow-moving streams and lagoons.
freshwater