You are using an outdated browser. Please upgrade your browser to improve your experience.

MEET THE ANIMALS

Animal Encyclopedia

Learn about aquatic species

Mote scientists work with many of these species to learn more about their roles in marine ecosystems and how to conserve their populations. You can even visit some of these species at Mote! Click on each species to learn more.

Species Type

Exhibit Location

359 Results

Coral catshark

Coral catsharks have the ability to change colors to blend into their environment, making it easier to hide from predators and...

Shrimpfish at Mote Aquarium

Coral shrimpfish

Coral shrimpfish are small, slender fish with compressed bodies. They’re yellow-brown in color with a single dark stripe...

Gorgonian Photos

Corals, Invertebrates

Corky sea fingers

Corky sea fingers have dense unbranched rods growing from a single base. Each rod has long tentacles, giving them a fuzzy texture....

Cottonwick grunt

Cottonwick grunts have silvery gray bodies and a black stripe on their upper back running from their head to their tail, along...

Cownose Ray at Mote

Sharks & Rays, Fishes

Cownose ray

Cownose ray

Corals, Invertebrates

Crescent coral

Crescent corals range in color from blue-grey to orange, usually with cream or green lining its borders. This coral species grows...

Crevalle jack

The crevalle jack is green/blue on its dorsal (top) side and silvery white on its belly. This coloration helps it blend into the...

Deep sea isopod

Deep sea isopods look like big aquatic insects. Their bodies, made of overlapping segments of hardened calcium carbonate, range...

Diamondback Terrapin

Diamondback terrapin

Diamondback terrapins are strong swimmers thanks to their muscular legs and webbed toes. Living in dynamic tidal environments,...

Donkey dung sea cucumber

Donkey dung sea cucumbers are long, brown and bumpy. They have white bellies with brown spotting on their bottom half and tiny...

Corals, Invertebrates

Double-forked sea rod

Ranging from yellow to brown in color, double-forked sea rods are a branching coral with rigid, thick and long branches coming...

Dungeness crab

Ranging from red-brown to purple in color, the dungeness crab has an oval carapace (body) with eight legs and two claws.

Dusky pipefish

Dusky pipefish have long and slender bodies. They’re born a bright yellow color and darken into a brownish-green as they...

Dusky squirrelfish

Dusky orange and red in color, these fish have horizontal silver stripes down their bodies.

Dwarf Cuttlefish

Dwarf cuttlefish

Dwarf cuttlefish have special cells in their skin, called chromatophores, that help them change color and hide from predators....

Dwarf seahorse

Masters of disguise, dwarf seahorses can change the color of their skin to blend in with their surroundings. This is particularly...

Eastern indigo snake

Eastern indigo snakes differ from other snake species in many ways, like utilizing their extremely powerful jaws to capture their...

Eastern mosquitofish

Eastern mosquitofish have silvery-blue bodies with a large balloon-like bump near their pectoral fins, accompanied by a small...

Ember parrotfish

Ember parrotfish are bright blue with minor highlights of yellow, green and pink through their midsection and face. They have...

Photos of Aquarium Animals by Miguel Montalvo

Corals, Invertebrates

Emerald false coral

These colorful corals can be purple, orange, green blue and/or. yellow depending on their depth in the water column, the temperature...

Emperor angelfish

Emperor angelfish are yellow in color with blue-green horizontal striping from their head to the base of their yellow tail. They...

Corals, Invertebrates

Encrusting gorgonian

Encrusting gorgonians are soft corals that grow in thin mat form, stretching flat over hard surfaces and substrates. They have...

Oh Baby! Sharks

Epaulette shark

Small and slender, epaulette sharks are tan with dark brown and black spots along their bodies. They have short, rounded snouts...

Eyestriped surgeon

Eyestriped surgeon fish range in color from light brown to blue with highlights of yellow on their fins and tail. From their head...

Feather blenny

The feather blenny is spotted with white and brown coloring on its entire body. Their dorsal fin is fanned out along their back....

Corals, Invertebrates

Finger coral

As its name suggests, finger coral looks very similar to human fingers. Their branches are thick and pale in color, growing from...

Corals, Invertebrates

Finger leather coral

Finger leather corals vary in color from shades of pink and brown to white and gold. They grow from a single base in a mushroom-like...

Photos of Aquarium Animals by Miguel Montalvo

Fish-eating anemone

Fish-eating anemones have an orange-red base and long white tentacles with pink tips. At the tip of each tentacle is a bundle...

Flag rockfish

These fish stand out because of their beautiful red and white stripes.

Photos of Aquarium Animals by Miguel Montalvo

Fishes, Octopus & Kin

Flamboyant cuttlefish

Flamboyant cuttlefish have the ability to change the color of their skin to camouflage themselves from predators nearby. They...

Flame Cardinalfish

Flame cardinalfish

Flame cardinalfish have striking eyes with two solid white lines running just around the iris. Their bodies are bright orange...

Flat Claw Hermit Crab

Flat claw hermit crab

These hermit crabs live in gastropod (single, spiraled shell) shells to protect their soft bodies from danger in their environment....

Florida manatee

Florida manatees have large, paddle-shaped tails that make gliding through water easy. They have vibrrissae, or whiskers around...

Florida sea cucumber

Florida sea cucumbers have rough, leathery skin with small cone-like bumps over their entire body. On their underside, Florida...

Foureye Butterflyfish

Foureye butterflyfish

The foureye butterflyfish gets its name from the large black dots resembling a second pair of eyes near its tail. These false...

French angelfish

These flat, oval-shaped fish are dark or black with yellow around their eyes, white around their mouths and yellow edges on their...

French grunt

French grunts are almond shaped. There bodies are silvery white with bright yellow stripes running from their head to their tail....

Gag grouper

Gag groupers like to gather and socialize along rocky ledges and coral reef ecosystems in the Gulf of Mexico and Atlantic Ocean....

Garibaldi

This fish is bright orange across its whole body and almost seems to glow against dark backgrounds. Its body shape is a flattened...

Giant Red Hermit Crab

Giant hermit crab

Giant hermit crabs have one larger and more dominant claw. They use this larger claw as protection from predators and to defend...

Giant kelpfish

The giant kelpfish is mottled with green, brown and/or red hues. Its body is long and flattened on the sides, with a pointy snout...

Giant Pacific octopus

Giant Pacific octopuses, or GPOs, as they are known at Mote, are reddish-pink with a vein-like pattern covering their bodies....

Gilded triggerfish

Gilded triggerfish differ in appearance based on their sex. Males have a bright blue spot on their chins and a strip of yellow...

Glass shrimp

Glass shrimp can be hard to spot because of their transparent coloring. Faint striping occurs on their midsection and ends at...

Gold-spotted rabbitfish

Gold-spotted rabbitfish have pale blue bodies covered in tiny orange dots from their head to their deeply forked tails.

Looe Key Reef Pictures

Golden colonial anemone

Golden colonial anemone grow in large groups. Each anemone is a small disc with two rings of tiny, hair-like tentacles. They can...

Goliath Grouper

Goliath grouper

Goliath grouper are large fish with a rounded snout, small eyes and dark spots all over their body, blending them into their surroundings....

Gopher rockfish

Gopher rockfish have orange-brown topsides with lighter spotting and white bellies. This spotting continues up onto their fanned...