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Porcupinefish are fish
Fish

A fish is any marine biology vertebrate animal that is typically ectothermic , covered with scale , and equipped with two sets of paired fins and several unpaired fins....
 of the family Diodontidae, (order Tetraodontiformes
Tetraodontiformes

The Tetraodontiformes are an order of highly derived Actinopterygii, also called the Plectognathi. Sometimes these are classified as a suborder of the Perciformes....
), also commonly called blowfish (and, sometimes, "balloonfish", pufferfish and "globefish").

They are sometimes confused with pufferfish
Pufferfish

Tetraodontidae is a family of primarily marine and estuarine fish. The family includes many familiar species which are variously called puffers, balloonfish, blowfish, bubblefish, globefish, swellfish, toadfish, and toadies....
. Porcupinefish are closely related to pufferfishes but porcupinefish have heavier spines (reminiscent of porcupine
Porcupine

Porcupines are rodents with a coat of sharp Spine , or quills, that defend them from predators. They are endemic in both the Old World and the New World....
s) on their body. Also unlike the pufferfishes, they have only a single plate of fused teeth in each of the upper and lower jaws.

Porcupinefish are medium to large sized fish, and are found in shallow temperate and tropical seas worldwide.






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Porcupinefish are fish
Fish

A fish is any marine biology vertebrate animal that is typically ectothermic , covered with scale , and equipped with two sets of paired fins and several unpaired fins....
 of the family Diodontidae, (order Tetraodontiformes
Tetraodontiformes

The Tetraodontiformes are an order of highly derived Actinopterygii, also called the Plectognathi. Sometimes these are classified as a suborder of the Perciformes....
), also commonly called blowfish (and, sometimes, "balloonfish", pufferfish and "globefish").

They are sometimes confused with pufferfish
Pufferfish

Tetraodontidae is a family of primarily marine and estuarine fish. The family includes many familiar species which are variously called puffers, balloonfish, blowfish, bubblefish, globefish, swellfish, toadfish, and toadies....
. Porcupinefish are closely related to pufferfishes but porcupinefish have heavier spines (reminiscent of porcupine
Porcupine

Porcupines are rodents with a coat of sharp Spine , or quills, that defend them from predators. They are endemic in both the Old World and the New World....
s) on their body. Also unlike the pufferfishes, they have only a single plate of fused teeth in each of the upper and lower jaws.

Porcupinefish are medium to large sized fish, and are found in shallow temperate and tropical seas worldwide. A few species are found much further out from shore, where they can occur in large shoals of thousands of individuals. They are generally slow.

Porcupinefish have the ability to inflate their body by swallowing water (or air) and become round like a ball. This increase in size (almost double vertically) reduces the range of potential predators to those with much bigger mouths. A second defense mechanism is provided by the sharp spines, which radiate outwards when the fish is inflated. Some species are poisonous, having a tetrodotoxin
Tetrodotoxin

Tetrodotoxin is a potent neurotoxin with no known antidote. Tetrodotoxin blocks action potentials in nerves by binding to the pores of the voltage-gated, fast sodium channels in neuron cell membrane....
 in their internal organs, such as the ovaries and liver. This neurotoxin is at least 1200 times more potent than cyanide, but interestingly it is produced by several types of bacteria that are somehow obtained from the fish's diet as fish bred in captivity are not poisonous. As a result porcupinefish have few predators, although adults are sometimes preyed upon by shark
Shark

Sharks are a type of fish with a full Cartilage skeleton and a highly Streamlines, streaklines and pathlinesd body. They respire with the use of five to seven gill slits....
s and orca
Orca

The Killer Whale or Orca , less commonly, Blackfish or Seawolf, is the largest species of the dolphin family. It is found in all the world's oceans, from the frigid Arctic and Antarctica regions to warm, tropical seas....
s. Juveniles are also preyed on by tuna
Tuna

Tuna are several species of ocean-dwelling fish in the family Scombridae, mostly in the genus Thunnus. Tunas are fast swimmers?they have been clocked at 70 km/h ?and include several species that are warm-blooded....
 and dolphin
Dolphin

File:Bottlenose_Dolphin_KSC04pd0178.jpgDolphins are marine mammals that are closely related to whales and porpoises. There are almost forty species of dolphin in seventeen genus....
s.

The UNIX
Unix

Unix is a computer operating system originally developed in 1969 by a group of American Telephone & Telegraph employees at Bell Labs, including Ken Thompson , Dennis Ritchie, Douglas McIlroy, and Joe Ossanna....
-derived computer operating system OpenBSD
OpenBSD

OpenBSD is a Unix-like computer operating system descended from Berkeley Software Distribution , a Unix derivative developed at the University of California, Berkeley....
 uses a porcupine fish as its mascot, named Puffy
Puffy (mascot)

Puffy is the mascot of the free software operating system OpenBSD. Puffy is a porcupinefish, which is used to signify the intention of the OpenBSD developers to make an impregnably secure operating system....
.

Species

  • Genus Allomycterus
    • Deepwater burrfish
      Deepwater burrfish

      The deepwater burrfish, Allomycterus pilatus, is a porcupinefish of the family Diodontidae, found in the eastern Indian Ocean, and southern Australia and New Zealand, at depths of between 40 and 270 m....
      , Allomycterus pilatus Whitley, 1931
    • Allomycterus whiteleyi Phillipps, 1932
  • Genus Chilomycterus (Burrfishes, Spiny Boxfishes)
    • Pacific burrfish, Chilomycterus affinis Gu:nther, 1870
    • Bridled burrfish, Chilomycterus antennatus (Cuvier, 1816)
    • Web burrfish, Chilomycterus antillarum Jordan & Rutter, 1897
    • Spotted burrfish, Chilomycterus atringa (Linnaeus, 1758)
    • Chilomycterus geometricus (Bloch & Schneider, 1801)
    • Spotfin burrfish, Chilomycterus reticulatus (Linnaeus, 1758)
    • Striped burrfish, Chilomycterus schoepfii (Walbaum, 1792)
    • Guinean burrfish, Chilomycterus spinosus mauretanicus (Le Danois, 1954)
    • Chilomycterus spinosus spinosus (Linnaeus, 1758)* Genus Cyclichthys
      Cyclichthys

      Members of the family diodontidae, species of the genus Cyclicthys are usually known as swelltoads....
       (Swelltoads)
    • Hardenburg's burrfish, Cyclichthys hardenbergi (de Beaufort, 1939)
    • Birdbeak burrfish, Cyclichthys orbicularis (Bloch, 1785)
    • Spotbase burrfish
      Spotbase burrfish

      Also known as the yellowspotted burrfish....
      , Cyclichthys spilostylus (Leis & Randall, 1982)
  • Genus Dicotylichthys
    • Three-barred porcupinefish, Dicotylichthys punctulatus Kaup, 1855
  • Genus Diodon
    Diodon

    Members of the diodontidae, species of the genus diodon are usually known as porcupinefishes or balloonfishes....
     (Porcupinefishes)
    • Pelagic porcupinefish, Diodon eydouxii Brisout de Barneville, 1846
    • Long-spine porcupinefish
      Long-spine porcupinefish

      The long-spine porcupinefish is also known as the spiny balloonfish....
      , Diodon holocanthus Linnaeus, 1758fish
    • Spot-fin porcupinefish
      Spot-fin porcupinefish

      Also known as the porcupinefish or porcupine pufferfish....
      , Diodon hystrix Linnaeus, 1758
    • Black-blotched porcupinefish
      Black-blotched porcupinefish

      Range*Indo-Pacific: Red Sea, East Africa to the Society Islands, north to southern Japan, south to New South Wales.*Southeast Atlantic: southeast coast of South Africa....
      , Diodon liturosus Shaw, 1804
    • Slender-spined porcupine fish
      Slender-spined porcupine fish

      The slender-spined porcupine fish, Diodon nichthemerus, is a porcupinefish of the family Diodontidae, found in the waters of southern Australia, as far north as Port Jackson to Geraldton, Western Australia....
      , Diodon nicthemerus Cuvier, 1818
  • Genus Lophodiodon
    • Four-bar porcupinefish, Lophodiodon calori (Bianconi, 1854)
  • Genus Tragulichthys
    • Longspine burrfish, Tragulichthys jaculiferus (Cuvier, 1818)


See also

  • List of freshwater aquarium fish species
    List of freshwater aquarium fish species

    A vast number of species of fish have been successfully kept in the home aquarium. This list gives only some of the most commonly-kept species....