Diodon
Encyclopedia
Members of the diodontidae, species of the genus diodon are usually known as porcupinefishes or balloonfishes.

Distinguishing features

Fish of the genus Diodon have;
  • two-rooted, moveable spines (actually modified scales) distributed over their bodies.
  • beak-like jaws, used to crush their hard-shelled prey (crustacean
    Crustacean
    Crustaceans form a very large group of arthropods, usually treated as a subphylum, which includes such familiar animals as crabs, lobsters, crayfish, shrimp, krill and barnacles. The 50,000 described species range in size from Stygotantulus stocki at , to the Japanese spider crab with a leg span...

    s and molluscs).

They differ from the swelltoads and burrfishes (genus Cyclichthys
Cyclichthys
Members of the family diodontidae, species of the genus Cyclicthys are usually known as swelltoads.-Distinguishing features:Fish of the genus Cyclicthys have;* three-rooted, rigid spines distributed over their bodies....

 and Chilomycterus), which have fixed, rigid spines.

Defense mechanisms

  • Like pufferfishes they can inflate themselves, making their spines stand perpendicular to the skin. When inflated they pose a major difficulty to their predators: a large diodon fully inflated can choke a shark
    Shark
    Sharks are a type of fish with a full cartilaginous skeleton and a highly streamlined body. The earliest known sharks date from more than 420 million years ago....

     to death. According to Charles Darwin in The Voyage Of the Beagle, Darwin was told by a Doctor Allen of Forres, UK that the Diodon actually was known to chew its way out of shark bodies after being swallowed, causing the death of its attacker and it known to have happened in several instances.
  • They may be poisonous, through the accumulation of tetrodotoxin
    Tetrodotoxin
    Tetrodotoxin, also known as "tetrodox" and frequently abbreviated as TTX, sometimes colloquially referred to as "zombie powder" by those who practice Vodou, is a potent neurotoxin with no known antidote. There have been successful tests of a possible antidote in mice, but further tests must be...

     or ciguatera
    Ciguatera
    Ciguatera is a foodborne illness caused by eating certain reef fishes whose flesh is contaminated with toxins originally produced by dinoflagellates such as Gambierdiscus toxicus which lives in tropical and subtropical waters. These dinoflagellates adhere to coral, algae and seaweed, where they are...

    .

Species

  • 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.-Range:The Long-spine porcupinefish is circumtropical in distribution, being found in the tropical zones of major seas and oceans:...

    , Diodon holocanthus (Linnaeus, 1758)
  • Spot-fin porcupinefish
    Spot-fin porcupinefish
    Also known as the porcupinefish or porcupine puffer.-Range:The spot-fin porcupinefish is circumtropical:* Eastern Pacific: San Diego to Chile including the Galapagos Islands....

    , 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.-Description:...

    , Diodon liturosus (Shaw
    George Shaw
    George Shaw was an English botanist and zoologist.Shaw was born at Bierton, Buckinghamshire and was educated at Magdalen Hall, Oxford, receiving his M.A. in 1772. He took up the profession of medical practitioner. In 1786 he became the assistant lecturer in botany at Oxford University...

    , 1804)
  • Slender-spined porcupine fish
    Slender-spined porcupine fish
    The slender-spined porcupine fish or globefish, 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
    Georges Cuvier
    Georges Chrétien Léopold Dagobert Cuvier or Jean Léopold Nicolas Frédéric Cuvier , known as Georges Cuvier, was a French naturalist and zoologist...

    , 1818)
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