Fish Word Search with Freshwater, Saltwater and Shark Lists

Freshwater, saltwater and aquarium fish, sharks, rays and the parts of a fish, in a puzzle to print or play.

Name Date

Fish Word Search

Find every word hidden in the grid. Words go across and down.

0 of 16 words found

NCLOWNFISHNFINE

SEFEGTGTPSKIEXZ

ESOLDEIBUSSCALE

AWETPSLEFTUNASB

HOISGOLDFISHREV

ORSAICPCENTECNT

RDELIAIRRGABTSH

SFIMCTRHFRITOSM

EIHONFAAIALAUVT

ESFNRINISYPOBDS

SHARKSHTHEAIAWT

RSKQPHAMMERHEAD

OBSAHOGNMCENWEL

TAORZTMNNSXAPYS

IIETDSILMOENDLA

This grid is wider and taller than its box. Slide it to see every letter.To drag, hold the first letter for a moment, then slide.Keyboard: Tab to the grid, arrow keys to move, Enter on the first and last letter.

CatfishCATFISH
SalmonSALMON
PiranhaPIRANHA
TunaTUNA
SwordfishSWORDFISH
GoldfishGOLDFISH
ClownfishCLOWNFISH
SharkSHARK
HammerheadHAMMERHEAD
StingraySTINGRAY
PufferfishPUFFERFISH
SeahorseSEAHORSE
FinFIN
GillGILL
ScaleSCALE
TailTAIL

16 of 24 words from the Fish Favorites list.

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Answer key: Fish Word Search

NCLOWNFISHNFINE

SEFEGTGTPSKIEXZ

ESOLDEIBUSSCALE

AWETPSLEFTUNASB

HOISGOLDFISHREV

ORSAICPCENTECNT

RDELIAIRRGABTSH

SFIMCTRHFRITOSM

EIHONFAAIALAUVT

ESFNRINISYPOBDS

SHARKSHTHEAIAWT

RSKQPHAMMERHEAD

OBSAHOGNMCENWEL

TAORZTMNNSXAPYS

IIETDSILMOENDLA

CATFISH, SALMON, PIRANHA, TUNA, SWORDFISH, GOLDFISH, CLOWNFISH, SHARK, HAMMERHEAD, STINGRAY, PUFFERFISH, SEAHORSE, FIN, GILL, SCALE, TAIL

Next step Find Shark again in the animal word search Build a puzzle from your own fish list

All 118 fish words

Freshwater Fish 19

Arapaima A South American river giant that can reach 3 meters long and must come to the surface to breathe air.
Bass Its name comes from a Middle English word, bars, that meant perch, though it is not in the perch family.
Bluegill A North American sunfish with deep blue and purple coloring on its face and gill cover.
Bowfin A North American living fossil, one of two survivors of a group that appeared about 250 million years ago.
Carp A freshwater fish mostly native to Europe and Asia. Koi are colorful kinds of it, kept in garden ponds.
Catfish Named for the feelers by its mouth, which look like whiskers. It has no scales at all.
Gar A long-bodied fish of North and Central America whose group first appeared over 240 million years ago.
Minnow A common name for many small freshwater fish of the carp family. One kind is a main bait fish in North America.
Pacu A South American relative of the piranha with squarer, straighter teeth. It feeds mainly on plants.
Paddlefish Its long, flat snout helps it sense prey in murky water. It is a relative of the sturgeon.

Show all 118 fish words (108 more)

Freshwater Fish, continued

Perch A lake and river fish with dark bars down its sides. The yellow kind lives in North America.
Pike A long hunter built like a dart, with a sharply pointed head, sharp teeth and a spotted gray-green body.
Piranha A South American river fish. One row of sharp teeth lines each jaw. It eats plants as well as meat.
Salmon It hatches in the gravel of a stream, grows up in the ocean, then swims back to the place where it was born.
Stickleback A small fish with strong spines on its back. The male builds a nest from weeds.
Sturgeon A long-lived fish of northern rivers, lakes and coasts. The oldest fossils of it come from Late Cretaceous rocks.
Tilapia The shared name of nearly a hundred species from Africa and the Middle East, now widely raised on farms.
Trout A close relative of salmon that lives in cool lakes and rivers and swims upstream to lay its eggs in gravel.
Walleye Named for its pearly eyes, which reflect light and help it feed when the water is dim.

Saltwater Fish 22

Anchovy A small, oily fish that forms huge schools and eats plankton. More than 140 species are known.
Barracuda A long hunter of warm seas with fang-like teeth, often found near coral reefs and sea grass.
Cod A fish of the North Atlantic and North Pacific with a single whisker, called a barbel, on its chin.
Eel A fish with a long body like a snake. About 1,000 species are known.
Flounder A flatfish that lies on the seabed. As it grows, one eye moves across its head to join the other.
Grouper A stout fish with a large mouth that swallows prey whole. One Atlantic goliath weighed 399 kilograms.
Halibut A very large flatfish. Its name joins old words for holy and flat fish, because it was eaten on holy days.
Herring A fish that moves in large schools through shallow, cool waters of the North Atlantic and North Pacific.
Lionfish A banded coral reef fish from the Indo-Pacific. The spines of the fins on its back carry venom.
Mackerel An open-ocean fish with a deeply forked tail and stripes like a tiger on its blue-green back.
Marlin One of the fastest swimmers in the sea. Like the sailfish and swordfish, it has a long, pointed bill.
Moray A family of about 200 eel species, nearly all of them in the sea. The name goes back to Latin and Greek.
Parrotfish Named for a mouth like a bird's beak. It lives on coral reefs, and some kinds eat away at the coral.
Sailfish Named for the huge fin on its back. Long called the fastest fish in the sea, though newer studies put its top speed far lower.
Sardine A small, oily fish of the herring group. Its name may come from the island of Sardinia.
Snapper A family of about 113 species from warm seas. The red kind is a well-known food fish.
Stonefish Known as the most venomous of all fish, it lives along the coasts of the Indian and Pacific Oceans.
Swordfish A large ocean hunter with a long, flat, pointed bill. Adults have no teeth and no scales.
Tarpon A large fish that can rise to the surface and gulp air for a burst of energy. There are two species.
Triggerfish It can lock a tall spine upright on its back. Pressing a second, shorter spine is the only way to release it.
Tuna A fast ocean hunter that can keep its body warmer than the water. The Atlantic bluefin can reach 4.6 meters.
Wrasse A family of over 600 species, many brightly colored. Most are small, but the humphead reaches 2.5 meters.

Aquarium Fish 21

Angelfish A flat, round-bodied fish from the Amazon with tall, triangular fins. Its shape lets it hide among roots and plants.
Barb A member of the carp family, often small. Its name comes from the Latin word for beard.
Betta A colorful pet from Southeast Asia. It can breathe air, and the best-known kind builds a nest of bubbles.
Cichlid One of the largest fish families, with at least 1,760 species. Angelfish, oscars and tilapia all belong to it.
Clownfish It shelters in a sea anemone for protection and keeps the anemone clean in return. White bars cross its body.
Danio A small fish from South and Southeast Asia, usually patterned with stripes, spots or bars, and often kept in tanks.
Discus A cichlid from the Amazon basin in Brazil. For their first weeks, the young feed on a coating made by the parents' skin.
Goby Usually small, with a large head and a tapered body. With about 2,211 species, it is one of the biggest fish groups.
Goldfish Bred for color in China for over a thousand years. It is a small relative of the carp.
Gourami An Asian fish with a special organ for gulping air. Many have a long feeler at the front of each pelvic fin.
Guppy A small tropical fish from northeast South America that gives birth to live young. Males have showy fins.
Koi A colorful carp kept in garden ponds. Breeders in Niigata, Japan, started the first kinds in the early 1800s.
Loach A bottom-dwelling freshwater fish of Europe, Asia and northern Africa. About 1,249 species are known.
Molly In a tank it grazes on green algae. It gives birth to live young, up to 150 at a time.
Oscar A South American cichlid also sold under names like tiger and velvet. It is a popular pet in Europe and the United States.
Platy A small livebearer from Central America and southern Mexico, a close relative of the swordtail without the sword.
Pleco A sucker-mouthed catfish from tropical South America with rows of armor-like plates. It can live 10 to 15 years in a tank.
Swordtail The lower edge of the male's tail fin stretches into a long point, which is where the name comes from.
Tang A reef fish with a sharp plate like a surgeon's blade on each side near its tail. About 86 species are known.
Tetra A small freshwater fish found in Africa and in Central and South America. The neon kind is brightly colored.
Zebrafish A small fish with five blue stripes along each side. Scientists study it because it can regrow damaged body parts.

Sharks And Rays 17

Bonnethead The smallest hammerhead, also called a shovelhead. It is one of only two sharks known to eat plants as well as meat.
Cookiecutter A small shark, about half a meter long, that bites and then twists to cut a neat circle out of its prey.
Dogfish A small shark with white spots on its back and a spine in front of each of its two back fins.
Eagle Ray A strong swimmer of the open ocean that can leap clear of the water. Its flat teeth crush shells.
Great White Among the largest sharks alive, with about 300 jagged, triangular teeth that are replaced again and again.
Guitarfish Also called a shovelnose ray, it has a long body, a flattened head and small wings.
Hammerhead Its head is stretched sideways into a T shape, with one eye at each end.
Mako The fastest known shark, able to reach 74 kilometers per hour in short bursts.
Manta Ray The largest kind can measure 7 meters across. It has horn-shaped fins by its mouth and a big brain for a fish.
Megalodon An extinct giant shark whose name means big tooth. It lived from about 23 million to 3.6 million years ago.
Sawfish A very large ray whose long, flat snout is lined with teeth like a saw. Every species is critically endangered.
Shark A fish with a skeleton of cartilage instead of bone. Each side of its head has 5, 6 or 7 gill slits.
Skate A flat relative of rays. Its young grow inside a tough egg case known as a mermaid's purse.
Stingray A flat relative of sharks with a venomous spine on its tail. About 220 species are known.
Thresher Its tail is as long as its body, and it whips that tail to stun the fish it hunts.
Torpedo A ray that stuns prey with an electric shock. The undersea weapon was named after it.
Wobbegong A carpet shark from around Australia and Indonesia. Its name is thought to mean shaggy beard.

Surprising Fish 19

Anglerfish One ray of its back fin has become a lure that draws prey toward its mouth, like bait on a line.
Archerfish It shoots down insects and other small prey on land by spitting jets of water from its mouth.
Blobfish A deep-sea fish with jelly-like flesh a little lighter than water, so it floats above the sea floor without effort.
Coelacanth Thought to have died out 66 million years ago, until living ones were caught off South Africa from 1938.
Electric Eel A South American river fish that stuns prey with shocks of up to 860 volts. Study of it helped lead to the battery in 1800.
Flying Fish It leaps out of the sea and glides on long fins shaped like wings, mostly to escape hunters below.
Hagfish An eel-shaped fish with no jaws. When attacked, it releases huge amounts of slime from its skin.
Icefish One of the few backboned animals with no hemoglobin in its blood. It lives in the cold seas around Antarctica.
Lamprey A jawless fish with a round, toothed, sucking mouth. Its name may come from Latin words for stone licker.
Lungfish A freshwater fish that can breathe air. It is the closest living fish relative of four-legged animals.
Mola Another name for the ocean sunfish, a huge fish that looks like a head without a tail. Adults can weigh 1,000 kilograms.
Mudskipper A fish that crawls over mud on jointed front fins and can even climb low branches. Its eyes stick up from its head.
Oarfish No living bony fish is longer than the giant kind, which reaches about 8 meters. People rarely see one.
Opah The only fish known to keep its whole body warmer than the water around it. It is also called a moonfish.
Pufferfish It swells into a spiny ball when threatened. Most kinds are poisonous to eat.
Remora Its back fin has become a suction pad, so it spends most of its life riding on a shark, whale, turtle or ray.
Seadragon A relative of the seahorse from southern Australia. The leafy kind is covered in leaf-shaped flaps that hide it.
Seahorse A fish that swims upright. The male has a pouch, and the female places up to 1,500 eggs inside it.
Whale Shark The largest fish alive. The longest one reliably measured was 18.8 meters, and it feeds by filtering the water.

Parts Of A Fish 20

Backbone The main support of the skeleton: a column of small, light, strong pieces that runs the length of the body.
Barbel A whisker-like feeler near the mouth. It carries taste buds and helps a fish find food in murky water.
Cartilage The flexible material that forms the skeletons of sharks and rays. It is about half as dense as bone.
Caudal The scientific name for the tail fin, the only fin joined directly to the backbone.
Denticle One of the tiny tooth-like scales that cover the skin of sharks and rays.
Dorsal The name for a fin on the back. Most fish have one. A few have two or three.
Eye In a fish it has a rounder lens than a land animal has, which suits seeing underwater.
Fin A thin flap that a fish uses to push through the water, to steer and to stay steady.
Gill The organ that lets a fish breathe underwater by taking oxygen from the water.
Jaw Most bony fish have two sets. One opens and closes the mouth. The other sits at the back of the throat.
Lateral Line A row of sense organs along each side that detects movement, vibration and pressure changes in the water.
Nostril In almost all fish this opening is a pit that does not connect to the mouth.
Operculum The bony flap that covers and protects the gills. It also helps with breathing and feeding.
Pectoral The name for the pair of fins on the sides, usually just behind the gill cover.
Pelvic The name for the pair of fins on the belly, the lower of the two paired sets.
Scale One of the small, tough plates that cover and protect the skin of most fish.
Slime The slippery coat of mucus on most fish. It guards against germs and helps the body slip through the water.
Snout The front of the head. It is measured from the eye forward to where the upper jaw ends.
Swim Bladder A gas-filled organ inside a bony fish that lets it stay at one depth without working to hold itself up.
Tail The rear of the body, ending in the fin that many fish sweep to push themselves forward.

How this list was compiled: Every animal in the list is a fish, living or extinct; whales, dolphins, crabs, jellyfish and starfish are left out on purpose. Spellings were checked on 2026-09-19 against English Wiktionary, and facts against each word's English Wikipedia article (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ followed by the article name). The Sailfish clue was corrected on 2026-09-20. Licence: own work

How it works

This fish word search holds only real fish: no Whale, no Jellyfish. It opens on 16 names pupils know, Shark, Goldfish and Seahorse among them, hidden across and down, and prints with its answer key.

Read the full guide

Sorted by where the fish live

Freshwater Fish, Saltwater Fish and Aquarium Fish sort 62 kinds by home. Sharks And Rays adds 17 more. Surprising Fish holds 19 that break the pattern, such as Mudskipper, which crawls over mud. Parts Of A Fish has 20 labels, from Fin and Gill to Operculum.

Easy Fish and Hard Fish

Easy Fish holds 37 words of 3 to 5 letters, from Cod, Eel and Koi to Trout and Shark. Hard Fish holds 49 of 8 to 12, Coelacanth and Cookiecutter among them.

Run Parts Of A Fish before a labeling diagram, so Dorsal, Pectoral, Pelvic and Caudal are familiar first.
Surprising Fish is a research starter: each pupil picks one, such as Coelacanth or Icefish, and reports back.

Questions and answers

Why are Whale, Dolphin and Jellyfish not in the puzzle?

They are not fish. All 98 animals in these lists are fish, and the other 20 words are parts of a fish. Whale Shark stays, because sharks are fish. Whale and Dolphin are in the ocean word search.

Is a seahorse really a fish?

Yes. It swims upright, and the male has a pouch where the female places up to 1,500 eggs. It sits in Surprising Fish.

Which list is right for kindergarten and first grade?

Easy Fish. 13 of its 37 words come from Aquarium Fish, names a child may know from a tank at home, such as Guppy, Betta and Tetra, and 8 are parts of a fish, from Fin and Gill to Snout and Slime.

All 118 fish words

Freshwater Fish 19

Freshwater Fish, continued

Saltwater Fish 22

Aquarium Fish 21

Sharks And Rays 17

Surprising Fish 19

Parts Of A Fish 20

How it works

Sorted by where the fish live

Easy Fish and Hard Fish

Questions and answers

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