Fish | Smithsonian Ocean

Colorful fish swim in blue water.

an adult and baby coelacanth specimens on display

Meet the Coelacanth

Learn about the fish that was once thought to be extinct.

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Featured Content

A Honduran small-scale fisherman on a boat setting out to fish.

Article

Clever Measures Track Fishing Pressures

A blue parrotfish hides among coral.

Article

Tough Teeth and Parrotfish Poop

On coral reefs fish are important links in the food chain that sustains higher-order predators (including humans) and keeps everything in balance.

Article

Fish Get Risky Around Oil

A tornado of sardines swirls around diver and photographer Erwin Poliakoff in the Philippines.

Article

Why the Littlest Fish Matter a Whole Lot

A school of akule (Hawaiian for bigeye scad) explode into a camera's frame.

Article

Following the Akule

Are You An Educator?

At Smithsonian Ocean, we have lesson plans, activities, and resources to help you engage your students in the wonders of our oceans.

see all lesson plans see fish lesson plans

Fish Articles

an old illustration of an eel

Article

The Origin of Eels

Thumbnail of man driving outboard on the ocean.

Video

Ocean Optimism Video - Linking Communities to Fisheries Science

Slideshow

Fish Illustrations

Gulf of Mexico Research Initiative researchers collect samples from a Pensacola Beach with oil layers in the sand. They use genomics to track how the communities of microbes change as they digest different components of oil after a spill.

Article

Three Ways You Can Use Genomics to Study Oil Spill Impacts

A sea toad from the deep waters off of Curacao.

Slideshow

Collections from Curaçao

Red Pigfish and Blue Mao-Mao school at the edge of a cavern in New Zealand's Poor Knights Islands. Read photographer Brian Skerry's story behind this photo.

Article

Behind the Photo: The Primal Ocean

Screenshot from video showing a close-up image of a plankton.

Video

The Secret Life of Plankton

Colorful fishes throng a reef in the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands.

Slideshow

Bizarre and Beautiful Coral Reef Animals

This queen parrotfish scrapes algae from Caribbean reefs with its parrot-like beak.

Article

From Despair to Repair: Protecting Parrotfish Can Help Bring Back Caribbean Coral Reefs

Colorful Christmas tree worms

Slideshow

Happy Holidays from the Ocean!

Convict surgeonfish are the roaming sheep of the reef but, instead of noshing on grass, they feed on algae.

Article

Helpful Herbivores

This shrimp is colored to fit in - probably why they are common members of the seaweed community.

Slideshow

A World Adrift: Life in the Sargassum Slideshow