Some estimates report the world’s oceans are home to 20,000 species of fish. Ocean fishes come in all shapes, sizes, colors and live in drastically different depths and temperatures. Despite this diversity, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization reported in 2016 that 89.5% of fish stocks are fully fished or overfished.
Learn fun facts and how you can help you favorite ocean fishes – from Atlantic bluefin tuna to blue tang – by clicking a species below.
Flashlight fish are predominately nocturnal and are only rarely observed by SCUBA divers during the day. They spend most of the daylight hours hidden in caves or holes in the reef surface. They feed at night away from the reef surface and likely use their light organs to help them locate small, planktonic prey. Like many species that … Read more
The Atlantic goliath grouper, like most groupers, is an ambush predator and eats fairly large fishes and invertebrates and even small sharks. Reefs with large numbers of predators, like Atlantic goliath groupers, are known to be healthier than reefs with no predators, so this species may represent an important part of the reef food web. Atlantic goliath … Read more
Though they spend much of their lives swimming among the tentacles of their host anemone, common clownfish occasionally leave to feed. They are plankton pickers, which means they visually seek and eat individual zooplankton or phytoplankton floating in the water column. They also likely eat algae from the reef surface. Because of the protection afforded them by their … Read more
The stoplight loosejaw is named for the two specialized light-producing organs that are located below each eye. One is green and one is red. Producing light in these two colors increases the ability of the stoplight loosejaw to see and attack its prey. There is very little light at the stoplight loosejaw’s preferred depth – 1700 to … Read more
The general name ‘triggerfish’ comes from the locking characteristic of the dorsal fin that all triggerfishes possess. The first dorsal-fin spine is large and strong and provides these fishes with some protection from predation. When it is erect (standing upright), it is locked in place by the second spine. The first spine can only be lowered after the … Read more
Stonefish are masters of camouflage and can blend in so perfectly with their surroundings that their prey, predators, and even human SCUBA divers have trouble seeing them at all. They almost always sit perfectly still, on the sea floor, in their preferred habitat of coral and rocky reefs, and their colors are often a perfect match … Read more
Adult Chinook salmon live in coastal seas and feed on pelagic invertebrates and other fishes. During the oceanic portion of their life cycle, these fish are primarily concerned with growing and storing energy that they will require for successful reproduction. This period can last anywhere between one and eight years. Once they reach reproductive size, they begin a … Read more
Observers typically only see the head and a small portion of the body, however, sticking out from a hiding place in the reef. Besides the occasional sick or wounded fish that wanders past their burrows, spotted morays do much of their hunting on the move, at night and during the twilight hours. They are also occasionally active … Read more
Chilean jack mackerel are filter feeders that eat fish larvae and small, pelagic crustaceans. Though they filter very small prey, they use their relatively large eyes and strong eyesight to increase the density of prey in the water that they filter. This strategy is in stark contrast to that used by the very large bodied filter … Read more
Queen parrotfish are herbivores that graze the reef, using their beaks to scrape plants and algae from the reef surface. Oftentimes, this habit involves ingesting corals and other animals as well, but they are primarily herbivorous. Through their feeding strategies, parrotfishes create much of the sand around a reef. Upon eating some species of calcareous algae (i.e., … Read more
Sign up today to get weekly updates and action alerts from Oceana.
We have already protected over 4 million square miles of ocean and innumerable sea life - but there is still more to be done.