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.
Freshwater Goby
A small stream-dwelling goby of East Asia, unusual among gobies for living its whole life cycle in fresh or amphidromous river systems.
freshwater
Freshwater Archerfish
The largest and most freshwater-tolerant of the archerfish, marked by scattered dark spots rather than bold bars. It uses the same precise water-spitting technique as its relatives to knock insects from overhanging vegetation.
freshwater
Freshwater Drum
The Freshwater Drum is the only entirely freshwater member of the drum family, recognized by its humpbacked silvery body and tail-extending lateral line.
freshwater
Freshwater Moray
An unusual moray that spends much of its adult life in rivers and estuaries rather than the sea, identified by its slender olive-brown body and fine dark mottling.
brackish
Freshwater Angelfish
An iconic Amazonian aquarium fish with a tall, disc-shaped, laterally compressed body, long trailing fins, and bold vertical stripes that help it blend among submerged roots and plants.
freshwater
Freshwater Butterflyfish
The freshwater butterflyfish is a surface-dwelling African fish with huge wing-like pectoral fins that let it glide above the water to snatch insects, giving it its butterfly-like name.
freshwater
Giant Freshwater Stingray
One of the largest freshwater fish on Earth, a massive river-dwelling stingray capable of exceeding 2 meters across and hundreds of kilograms.
freshwater
Angelfish
A tall, laterally flattened cichlid from the Amazon basin, prized in the aquarium hobby for its striking triangular fin profile and extensive range of bred color varieties.
freshwater
American Eel
The American Eel spends most of its life in North American rivers and estuaries before migrating once to the Sargasso Sea to spawn and die.
freshwater
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
Burbot
The burbot is the only fully freshwater member of the cod family, an eel-shaped, mottled predator found in cold lakes and rivers across the Northern Hemisphere.
freshwater
Largetooth Sawfish
One of the largest sawfish species, uniquely able to travel far up freshwater rivers, now Critically Endangered and eliminated from most of its former circumtropical range.
cartilaginous
Lake Sturgeon
The lake sturgeon is a large, armored, long-lived freshwater fish native to the Great Lakes and Mississippi basin, recognizable by its bony scute rows and shovel-shaped snout.
freshwater
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
Alligator Gar
A massive, armor-scaled freshwater fish with a broad alligator-like snout lined with two rows of sharp teeth, among the largest freshwater fish in North America.
freshwater
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
Gulf Pipefish
The Gulf pipefish is a small, slender pipefish common in seagrass beds and estuaries around the Gulf of Mexico and southeastern United States, notable for tolerating salinities ranging from full seawater to nearly fresh water.
brackish
Iridescent Shark
Despite its name, this is a large freshwater catfish, not a shark, recognized in juveniles by an iridescent sheen and dark stripes that fade with age.
freshwater
Electric Catfish
An African freshwater catfish capable of generating strong electric discharges from specialized body tissue used for hunting and defense.
freshwater
Goldfish
A hardy freshwater fish domesticated from the wild Prussian carp, prized worldwide as an ornamental pond and aquarium species in many color forms.
freshwater
Common Roach
A widespread European freshwater fish with a silvery body and distinctive red-orange fins, forming large shoals in slow rivers, lakes, and canals.
freshwater
Betta
A small, vividly colored Southeast Asian freshwater fish famed for its flowing fins and the intense territorial aggression of males toward rivals.
freshwater
Ember Tetra
A tiny, glowing orange-red tetra that shoals in large numbers and is among the smallest characins kept in freshwater aquaria.
freshwater
Dwarf Pufferfish
The Dwarf Pufferfish is one of the world's smallest puffers, a freshwater species from southern India prized for its tiny size and expressive, alert behavior.
freshwater