This article introduces a package that provides interactive and programmatic access to the FishBase repository. This package allows interaction with data on over 30 000 fish species in the rich statistical computing environment, R. This direct, scriptable interface to FishBase data enables better discovery and integration essential for large-scale comparative analyses. This article provides several examples to illustrate how the package works, and how it can be integrated into phylogenetics packages such as ape and geiger. © 2012 The Authors. Journal of Fish Biology © 2012 The Fisheries Society of the British Isles.