Colorful fish swim in blue water.

Fish

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.

Clever Measures Track Fishing Pressures

A blue parrotfish

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.

Fish Get Risky Around Oil

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

Why the Littlest Fish Matter a Whole Lot

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

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

A photo of a swimming Protanguilla palau, the newly discovered genus and species of eel

Scientists Call New Eel Species A Living Fossil

Photograph of the underside of a gelatinous octopus with a bright yellow bioluminescent ring around her mouth.

Bioluminescent Animals Photo Gallery

Master carver Douglas Chilton rides in the Raven Spirit canoe at its ceremonial launch.

The Sant Ocean Hall: Salmon Shape a Way of Life

A photo of Oceana's ice class research vessel, the Hanse Explorer, on the Baltic Sea.

Biodiversity in the Baltic Sea

Mistaken Point New Foundland

Ediacaran Fossils: One Species at a Time

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

A World Adrift: Life in the Sargassum Slideshow

A sea toad from the deep waters off of Curacao.

Collections from Curaçao

The Autonomous Reef Monitoring Structure was developed to help scientists study coral reef diversity and have now been adopted broadly to study diversity around the world.

Uncovering Biodiversity… with ARMS and a Submarine Claw

A tusk shell hermit crab peeks out of his shell.

Uncovering Biodiversity Before It Disappears

On Moorea, an island in French Polynesia, researchers are striving to complete a biocode—a DNA catalog of every life form big enough to pick up with tweezers.

Scientists Catalog Life on the Island of Moorea

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.

Behind the Photo: The Primal Ocean

A whale shark swims with a diver off the coast of East Africa.

The Big Five of the Ocean: Exploring the Waters of East Africa

Banner Credit

Russell Gilbert, flickr