White-spotted Puffer

• Its tissues accumulate tetrodotoxin, a neurotoxin it does not make itself but obtains from bacteria through its diet, and which is several hundred times more potent than cyanide.
• When it inflates it swallows water, not air, and a pufferfish taken out of the water and inflated with air usually dies.
• It has neither scales nor ribs, which lets it deform until it becomes a sphere.
• Like the Japanese pufferfish, it accumulates tetrodotoxin in its liver, gonads and skin, and the toxin is not made by the fish itself but by bacteria that reach it through its diet.
• It inflates by swallowing water until it becomes a ball almost impossible for a predator to swallow. It has no ribs or pelvis, which is what allows that deformation.
• Its teeth are fused into four plates, with which it breaks open shells, sea urchins and corals.
• It has no scales: the skin is thick, leathery and covered in small spicules that stand erect when it inflates.
• It swims slowly, moving its pectoral and dorsal fins, and relies entirely on its toxicity to survive.

Skeleton type

Vertebrate - internal bony skeleton (fish)

Habitat and environment

Lagoons, reefs and seagrass beds of the Indo-Pacific, from 1 to 50 m

Sources consulted: Wikipedia (es): Arothron hispidus