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.
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
Molly
A hardy, adaptable livebearer native to Mexico and Central America, the common molly thrives in fresh, brackish, and even marine water and is one of the most popular beginner aquarium fish.
freshwater
Yucatan Molly
A large sailfin livebearer native to the coastal waters of the Yucatan Peninsula, known for the male's dramatically tall, sail-like dorsal fin used in courtship.
brackish
Balloon Molly
A selectively bred molly variety with a distinctive rounded, ball-shaped body caused by a spinal curvature, developed and maintained through aquarium breeding.
freshwater
Sailfin Molly
Named for the male's spectacular, sail-like dorsal fin, this coastal livebearer from the southeastern United States and Mexico is a striking sight in brackish marshes and aquariums alike.
brackish
Shortfin Molly
A hardy, adaptable livebearer native to Mexico and Central America, prized in the aquarium trade for its tolerance of varied water chemistry.
freshwater
Amazon Molly
An entirely female species that reproduces through a rare cloning-like process, the Amazon molly is a biological curiosity native to rivers along the Texas-Mexico border.
freshwater
Gold Dust Molly
A selectively bred molly variety combining a golden-yellow base color with fine black speckling, developed in the aquarium trade from wild Poecilia stock.
freshwater
Molly Miller Blenny
A hardy little blenny that perches motionless on shallow rocks in tropical Atlantic tide pools, easily recognized by the fringed tentacles above its eyes.
saltwater
Black Jack
The Black Jack is a large, uniformly dark trevally that forms big schools around offshore tropical reefs and current-swept drop-offs across the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic Oceans.
reef
Black Drum
The Black Drum is a deep-bodied, greyish-black sciaenid with distinctive chin barbels, found in estuaries and coastal waters from the mid-Atlantic to Argentina.
brackish
Black Swallower
A small deep-sea fish renowned for an extraordinarily distensible stomach that lets it engulf prey several times its own body length and mass in a single strike.
deepsea
Black Crappie
A silvery panfish mottled with irregular dark speckling, closely related to the White Crappie but preferring clearer water, and one of the most popular schooling panfish in North America.
freshwaterBlack Hagfish
The black hagfish is a jawless, deep-sea scavenger found on the muddy continental slope off the Pacific coast of North America, notable for its uniformly dark coloration.
deepsea
Black Marlin
A massive, powerful billfish of the Indo-Pacific known for its rigid, immovable pectoral fins and status as one of the largest bony fish in the ocean.
pelagic
Black Rockfish
A dark, deep-bodied schooling rockfish common over rocky reefs and kelp forests along the Pacific coast, often seen in large surface-oriented aggregations.
saltwater
Black Neon Tetra
A small Brazilian tetra marked by a bold black horizontal stripe paired with a shimmering silvery-white line above it, a popular schooling fish in freshwater aquariums.
freshwater
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
Black Sea Bass
A stocky, dark-bodied grouper relative common on rocky reefs and wrecks along the temperate western Atlantic coast, easily recognized by its high arched back and blunt head.
reef
Black Sea Bream
A deep-bodied porgy of the Mediterranean and Eastern Atlantic, notable for males that excavate and guard nest depressions on the seabed during spawning.
saltwater
Black Phantom Tetra
A gray-black Paraguay basin characin known for its dramatic sail-like dorsal fin displays and mild social hierarchy behavior among males.
freshwater
Black Skirt Tetra
A silvery-gray tetra with a flowing black skirt-like tail and fins, whose dark coloration typically fades somewhat as the fish matures.
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
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