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
Semicircle Angelfish
A large Indo-Pacific angelfish; adults are greenish-brown with blue-speckled fins and blue face lines.
reef
Steelhead
The anadromous, sea-run form of rainbow trout, prized by anglers for its powerful runs and acrobatic leaps after migrating between rivers and the Pacific Ocean.
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
Salmon
A large anadromous fish that hatches in freshwater rivers, migrates to the ocean to mature, and returns upriver to spawn, prized as an iconic sport fish.
freshwater
Pristella Tetra
A translucent, pale-golden tetra whose semi-transparent body reveals internal structures, marked by distinctive black-and-yellow fin patches.
freshwater
Blueback Herring
A slender, silvery anadromous herring closely related to the Alewife, distinguished by its deep blue-green back, that migrates from Atlantic coastal waters into freshwater rivers each spring to spawn.
brackish
Bull Shark
A stocky, grey shark famous for its extreme tolerance of fresh and brackish water, allowing it to travel far up rivers and live in freshwater lakes far from the ocean.
cartilaginous
Alewife
A small, silvery anadromous herring native to the Atlantic coast of North America, recognizable by a single dark shoulder spot, that migrates from the ocean into freshwater rivers and lakes each spring to spawn.
brackish
Swamp Eel
A limbless, scaleless, snake-like eel that burrows through mud in freshwater and brackish swamps of South and Southeast Asia and can survive in poorly oxygenated water using accessory air breathing.
brackish
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
Bumblebee Fish
A tiny, boldly banded goby popular in brackish aquariums, named for its wasp-like black-and-yellow stripes.
brackish