Fish That Start With L

11 fish Animals and nature Checked 9 Oct 2026

Here are 11 fish that start with L, each with a one-line description so you can tell what it is. The best-known ones come first, then the full list in A to Z order.

L has eleven fish, and three of them are real oddities. The lionfish has bright stripes and long spiny fins. The lungfish can breathe air, and the lamprey has no jaw at all, just a round sucking mouth.

Anglers will know the lake trout, the largemouth and the ling. The lemon shark and lemon sole share a fruity first word but are very different fish, one a shark that swims in schools and one a flatfish. The loach is a slim freshwater fish that looks a bit like a small catfish.

Fish starting with L: 11
Best known: lionfish, lungfish
Longest name: lake herring

Best-known fish that start with L

The ones most people will recognise, good for school lists, quizzes and games.

lionfish
lungfish
lamprey

All fish that start with L

#	Name	What it is
1	lake herring	important food fish of cold deep lakes of North America
2	lake trout	large fork-tailed trout of lakes of Canada and the northern United States
3	lamprey	eel-like jawless fish with a round sucking mouth
4	lancet fish	large elongate scaleless oceanic fishes with sharp teeth and a long dorsal fin that resembles a sail
5	largemouth	a large black bass; the angle of the jaw falls behind the eye
6	lemon shark	common shallow-water schooling shark of the Atlantic from North Carolina to Brazil and off west Africa; dangerous
7	lemon sole	popular pale brown food flatfish of the Pacific coast of North America
8	ling	American hakes
9	lionfish	brightly striped fish of the tropical Pacific having elongated spiny fins
10	loach	slender freshwater fishes of Eurasia and Africa resembling catfishes
11	lungfish	air-breathing fish having an elongated body and fleshy paired fins

Short fish with L

ling
loach

Questions people ask

How many fish start with L?

This list has 11 fish starting with L, from well-known ones like lionfish, lungfish, lamprey to rarer kinds.

What fish start with L?

Well-known examples are lionfish, lungfish, lamprey.

Source: Princeton WordNet, a public dictionary database, reviewed by our editors to keep only clear, real members of the list. Meanings are short dictionary glosses.

See every letter on one page: fish A to Z