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.
Striped Sea Robin
A bottom-dwelling northwestern Atlantic fish with an armored head and wing-like pectoral fins, the Striped Sea Robin shows bold dark diagonal bars along its brownish body.
saltwater
Striped Marlin
A swift, streamlined billfish famous for its tall, sail-like blue dorsal fin and rows of pale vertical stripes, ranging widely through the Pacific and Indian Oceans as a top offshore predator.
pelagic
Striped Panchax
A larger South Asian killifish, also called the golden wonder killifish, marked by bold dark horizontal stripes on a golden-olive body. It hunts insects near the surface of ponds and rice paddies.
freshwater
Striped Bass
A large, silvery, hard-fighting bass marked with bold black stripes, native to the Atlantic coast and now widely established in freshwater reservoirs across North America.
brackish
Striped Catfish
An eel-shaped Indo-Pacific reef catfish marked with pale longitudinal stripes, whose juveniles form dense, tightly packed schooling balls over sand and reef flats.
reef
Stars and Stripes Puffer
A widespread Indo-Pacific puffer, also called the whitespotted puffer, marked with fine white spots on an olive-brown body and dark rings encircling the eyes and pectoral fin bases.
reefZebra Seahorse
A small, boldly striped seahorse endemic to northern Australian waters, patterned with fine dark bands that give it a distinctly zebra-like appearance.
reef
Blackstripe Topminnow
A slender freshwater killifish of the central and eastern U.S., identified by a single solid black stripe running from snout to tail. It inhabits quiet pools and slow stream reaches.
freshwaterZebra Danio
A small, torpedo-shaped freshwater fish famous for the bold horizontal blue and gold stripes running the length of its body, and widely used as a model species in scientific research.
freshwater
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
Zebra Loach
A small, boldly striped South Indian loach with fine dark vertical bands, popular in aquariums for its compact size and peaceful, social behavior.
freshwater
Four-Eyed Fish
A surface-dwelling brackish-water fish famous for eyes split into upper and lower halves, allowing it to see simultaneously above and below the waterline.
brackish
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
Tanganyika Goby
A small, goby-shaped cichlid endemic to Lake Tanganyika's rocky shallows, grazing algae from wave-washed rocks and instantly recognizable by its blunt head and bottom-hugging posture.
freshwater
Orange-lined Triggerfish
The Orange-lined Triggerfish is a dark green triggerfish covered in bold curving orange stripes, one of the most vividly patterned fish on Indo-Pacific reefs.
reef
Silverstripe Halfbeak
A slender halfbeak marked by a bright silver lateral stripe, found skimming the surface of tropical Indo-Pacific reef lagoons.
reef
White Bass
A deep-bodied, silvery schooling bass with faint horizontal stripes, common in large freshwater lakes and rivers of the central United States, known for its spring spawning runs.
freshwater
Lined Surgeonfish
A boldly striped blue, black, and yellow tang that fiercely defends algal-turf patches on shallow, wave-exposed reef crests across the Indo-Pacific.
reef
Clown Tang
A vividly striped surgeonfish with alternating blue, black, and yellow horizontal lines, one of the most aggressively territorial herbivores on shallow Indo-Pacific reef crests.
reef
Banded Rainbowfish
A highly variable, boldly patterned rainbowfish from northeastern Australia, often showing multiple dark horizontal stripes and vivid regional color forms.
freshwater
Timor Halfbeak
A small, slender halfbeak of the genus Zenarchopterus with a needle-thin lower jaw, common in the brackish estuaries and coastal rivers of the Indo-Pacific near Timor and Southeast Asia.
brackish
Whitespotted Puffer
A common Indo-Pacific reef puffer with a dark olive-brown body scattered with small white spots and distinctive dark rings around its eyes, gills, and pectoral fin bases.
reef
Silver Scat
A disc-shaped, silvery fish marked with dark vertical bars, found schooling in brackish estuaries and mangroves across the Indo-Pacific and northern Australia.
brackish
Raphael Catfish
A hardy South American armored catfish known for the bold cream stripes running along its dark body and its ability to produce audible clicking sounds when handled.
freshwater