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.
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.
pelagicPacific Menhaden
A deep-bodied, silvery schooling fish found along the Pacific coast of South America, marked by a row of dark spots along its flank and adapted to feeding within the highly productive Humboldt Current upwelling system.
pelagic
Gulf Menhaden
A deep-bodied, oily-scaled herring relative that forms enormous schools in Gulf of Mexico estuaries, playing a major role as a forage fish in coastal food webs.
brackishAtlantic 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
Atlantic Salmon
An iconic anadromous fish of the North Atlantic, born in cold rivers, maturing at sea, and returning to natal streams to spawn.
freshwater
Atlantic Sturgeon
The Atlantic sturgeon is a large, armored anadromous fish of eastern North America, spending years at sea before returning to coastal rivers to spawn.
brackish
Atlantic Mackerel
A fast-swimming schooling fish with iridescent blue-green wavy stripes across its back, found in cold and temperate waters on both sides of the North Atlantic.
pelagic
Atlantic Wolffish
A large, eel-like cold-water fish with powerful crushing jaws, sheltering solitarily in rocky dens across the North Atlantic.
saltwater
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
Atlantic Hagfish
The Atlantic hagfish is a primitive, eel-like, jawless scavenger known for producing enormous quantities of defensive slime and for its ability to feed inside the carcasses of dead or dying animals on the seafloor.
deepsea
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.
saltwaterAtlantic Silverside
A slender, schooling coastal fish common along the western Atlantic shoreline, marked by a bright silver stripe running down each flank.
brackish
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.
brackish
Atlantic Bonito
A streamlined, fast-swimming relative of tuna and mackerel, marked by dark oblique stripes running across its steel-blue back.
pelagic
Atlantic Pollock
A fast, schooling North Atlantic gadid with a dark streamlined body and pale lateral line, often found swimming in open water over the shelf.
pelagic
Atlantic Mudskipper
An amphibious goby that hops and skips across mangrove mudflats using muscular pectoral fins, breathing air through its skin and mouth lining when out of water.
brackish
Atlantic Saury
A slender, silvery, beaked fish of the open North Atlantic, closely related to needlefish, recognized by its elongated jaws and a row of small finlets near the tail.
pelagic
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
Atlantic Halibut
The Atlantic halibut is the largest flatfish species, a right-eyed flounder with a diamond-shaped body found on cold seabeds of the North Atlantic.
saltwater
Atlantic Bluefin Tuna
A massive, torpedo-shaped, deep blue-backed tuna built for speed and long-distance migration across the Atlantic Ocean and Mediterranean Sea.
pelagic
Atlantic Blue Marlin
A massive, powerful billfish of the open Atlantic, known for its cobalt-blue back, silvery flanks, and a long spear-like bill used to stun prey.
pelagic
Tomcod
The Atlantic tomcod is a small, estuarine member of the cod family found along the northwestern Atlantic coast, notable for tolerating brackish and nearly fresh water unlike most of its relatives.
brackish
Bonito
A fast, streamlined relative of the tunas and mackerels, marked by bold dark diagonal stripes across its upper back, found in schools across temperate and warm seas.
pelagic
Butterfish
A disc-shaped, silvery schooling fish of the northwestern Atlantic shelf, the Butterfish migrates seasonally between inshore and offshore waters and often shelters near jellyfish as a juvenile.
pelagic