774 articles
Pacu
Pacu is a common name for herbivorous South American serrasalmid fish related to piranhas, including Colossoma, Mylossoma, and Piaractus. Two rows of molar-like teeth, fruit-and-seed diet, major aquaculture species, and reported in at least 17 US states.
Paddlefish
The paddlefish, also called the American paddlefish or spoonbill, is a large freshwater fish of the Mississippi River basin with a paddle-shaped snout it uses to detect zooplankton.
Pagellus erythrinus
Pagellus erythrinus, the common pandora (Sparus erythrinus), is a pink sparid seabream of the eastern Atlantic and Mediterranean, fished commercially, protogynous, and subject to seafood substitution fraud.
Pagrus pagrus
Pagrus pagrus, the red porgy or common seabream, is a Sparidae sea bream of both Atlantic coasts and the Mediterranean; a protogynous hermaphrodite reaching 91 cm and 26 years, commercially fished and farmed, with a collapsed southern Brazil fishery.
Pain in fish
Pain in fish: whether fishes feel conscious pain, not just nociception. Rainbow trout nociceptors (Sneddon 2002), analgesia-responsive behavior, Rose's cortical skepticism, and the current scientific consensus that fish are sentient.
Palmatolepis
Palmatolepis is an extinct Late Devonian conodont genus (Frasnian–Famennian, 378.9–359.3 Ma), the most abundant of its time, basis of the Late Devonian Standard Conodont Zonation, extinct at the Devonian–Carboniferous crisis.
Pampus argenteus
Pampus argenteus, the silver pomfret (zobaidy), is a deep-bodied stromateid fish of the Indo-West Pacific from the Persian Gulf to Japan, a highly commercial schooling zooplankton feeder supporting major fisheries and emerging aquaculture.
Panfish
Panfish: collective angling term, attested by 1814, for small freshwater fish that fit in a pan, such as bluegill, crappie, yellow perch, and pumpkinseed; heavily harvested table fare with widely varying bag limits.
Pangasius
Pangasius, a genus of Asian shark catfishes (Pangasiidae); farmed species Pangasianodon hypophthalmus. Viet Nam dominates a trade exceeding 4 million tonnes in 2026, sold as affordable frozen whitefish fillets.
Paracanthurus
Paracanthurus, monotypic surgeonfish genus of Acanthuridae holding the blue tang or palette surgeonfish, Paracanthurus hepatus (Linnaeus, 1766); Indo-Pacific reef fish, sister to Zebrasoma, venomous caudal spine, IUCN Least Concern.
Paralichthys californicus
Paralichthys californicus, the California halibut or California flounder (lenguado californiano), is a large-tooth flounder from Washington to Baja California, ambush-feeding on sand bottoms, right- or left-eyed, and a major California fishery species.
Paralichthys dentatus
Paralichthys dentatus, the summer flounder or fluke, a left-eyed mid-Atlantic flatfish from Nova Scotia to Florida; ambush predator, fall spawner, and a rebuilt commercial and recreational fishery stock.
Paralichthys lethostigma
Paralichthys lethostigma, the southern flounder (lenguado limpio), is a left-eyed large-tooth flatfish of US Atlantic and Gulf coasts, estuarine-dependent, IUCN Near Threatened, and overfished in assessed stocks.
Paralichthys olivaceus
Paralichthys olivaceus, the olive flounder or Japanese flounder (hirame, 넙치), a large left-eyed flatfish of the Western Pacific; a leading East Asian aquaculture species, with a 546 Mb genome and metamorphic eye migration studied as a flatfish asymmetry model.
Pareques acuminatus
Pareques acuminatus, the high-hat (also cubbyu, striped drum; formerly Equetus acuminatus), is a small western Atlantic sciaenid reef fish with dark brown stripes and a tall dorsal fin, kept in aquariums, revised taxonomically in 2022.
Parophrys vetulus
Parophrys vetulus, the English sole, is a righteye flounder of the eastern North Pacific from the Bering Sea to Baja California, a commercially trawled flatfish and a Puget Sound contaminant indicator species.
Parrotfish
Parrotfish, also called pollyfish, are tropical marine reef fish named for their beak-like fused teeth; grazing algae and dead coral, they do most bioerosion on reefs.
Patagonian toothfish
Patagonian toothfish (Dissostichus eleginoides), sold as Chilean sea bass or mero, a deep-water southern-ocean fish up to 2 m long, fished by bottom longline and managed by CCAMLR amid past IUU fishing.
Peacock bass
Peacock bass (Cichla spp.), also tucunaré or pavón, are large predatory South American cichlids from the Amazon and Orinoco basins; prized sport fish widely introduced worldwide, with documented severe impacts on native fish communities.
Pelagic fish
Pelagic fish live in the water column, away from bottom and shore, in coastal seas, open oceans, and lakes. Coastal pelagics (anchovies, sardines) and oceanic pelagics (tuna, swordfish) differ by depth; many school and serve as forage fish.
Pelecus cultratus
Pelecus cultratus, the sichel or sabrefish (ziege), a pelagic anadromous cyprinid of Black, Caspian, Aral, and Baltic basins; up to 60 cm, 2 kg, 11 years; IUCN Least Concern, minor commercial fishery.
Pelican eel
Pelican eel (Eurypharynx pelecanoides), also called gulper eel, a deep-sea eel and the only species of Eurypharyngidae, with a mouth half its preanal length, a luminous tail organ, and a unique mitochondrial gene order, living at 500–3,000 m worldwide.
Pennahia argentata
Pennahia argentata, the silver croaker (shirougui), a sciaenid fish of the Northwest Pacific from Hong Kong to Japan, living over sandy-muddy coastal bottoms at 20-140 m, reaching 40 cm, a commercial croaker rated Least Concern.
Peprilus paru
Peprilus paru, the American harvestfish (basionym Stromateus paru), is a deep-bodied western Atlantic butterfish (Stromateidae) from the northeastern USA to Brazil, reaching 36 cm, schooling at 15–136 m and feeding on jellyfish.
Peprilus triacanthus
Peprilus triacanthus, the American or Atlantic butterfish, a small deep-bodied stromateid fish of the northwest Atlantic from Florida to Newfoundland; short-lived, schooling, commercially fished by the U.S., stock not overfished.
Perca fluviatilis
Perca fluviatilis, the European or Eurasian perch (redfin perch), a Percidae freshwater fish native from Britain to Siberia's Kolyma River, IUCN Least Concern, highly fecund, piscivorous, invasive in Australia and New Zealand.
Perch
Perch: true perch are Perca fluviatilis and P. flavescens of the family Percidae (over 190 holarctic freshwater species); the name also covers unrelated fish like Sebastes alutus and Morone americana.
Percidae
Percidae, the perch family (Rafinesque, 1815), is a Northern Hemisphere freshwater fish family in Perciformes with 11 genera and about 248 species, including perch, zander, walleye, ruffe, and the species-rich North American darters.
Perciformes
Perciformes, perch-like fishes, an order of ray-finned fishes containing perches, groupers, tunas, gobies, and wrasses; once the largest vertebrate order with 160 families, redefined monophyletically in 2013 to 61 families within Eupercaria.
Percomorpha
Percomorpha (Percomorphacea) is the largest clade of spiny-rayed teleost fishes, over half of ray-finned fish species; once Nelson's 'bush at the top', now resolved by molecular phylogenomics and divided into series like Ovalentaria and Eupercaria.