A Global Information System on Fishes

Welcome to the world of fishes!
FishBase is a global biodiversity information system on finfishes. Its initial goal to provide key facts on population dynamics for 200 major commercial species has now grown to having a wide range of information on all species currently known in the world: taxonomy, biology, trophic ecology, life history, and uses, as well as historical data reaching back to 250 years.

At present, FishBase covers >35,600 fish species compiled from >61,700 references in partnership with >2,520 collaborators: >329,500 common names and >64,000 pictures. Our website gathers more than 700,000 visits monthly.

The breadth and depth of information in the database, combined with the analytical and graphical tools available in the web, cater to different needs of diverse groups of stakeholders (scientists, researchers, policy makers, fisheries managers, donors, conservationists, teachers and students). Its various applications aim for sustainable fisheries management, biodiversity conservation and environmental protection.

FishBase is currently hosted by the Quantitative Aquatics, Incorporated (Q-quatics), a non-stock, non-profit, non-governmental organization engaged in the development and management of global databases on aquatic organisms, including their distribution and ecology. It is scientifically guided by a Consortium of 13 international members (see below).

With the help of >2,000 collaborators we update the database daily (internally), and bimonthly on the website. FishBase provides the database and web interface for free for 25 years thanks to a full-time dedicated team. However, we lack recurrent funding to maintain the information system up to date both in content and technological innovation. We gratefully acknowledge financial contribution to continue the service of this open resource.

Main Data statistics as of February 2024 Note: The first number is the number of species, and the number inside the parenthesis is the number of records.

Additional Statistics

35,628	Species	in 5,219 genera, 623 families, 84 orders, 10 classes
102,596	Synonyms	with 94,805 synonyms and 7,791 misapplied names
329,512	Common names	for 29,642 species in 258 "countries" in 351 languages
194,553	Reports in countries	for 34,859 species in 304 "countries"
160,034	Reports in ecosystems	for 32,787 species in 1,294 "ecosystems"
63,168	Reports in FAO areas	for 35,527 species in 26 FAO areas
21,661	Species with morphology	of which 18,314 have a short textual description
13,306	Morphometric ratio records	for 11,686 species
1,687	Identification keys	for 8,226 species
34,060	References used	and 22,477 not used yet
~3.3 million	Records	in total in ~200 tables (~60 main)

For more info, see Fish Statistics.