A predator is actually lucky if a pufferfish blows up like a spiky water balloon in its mouth. Eating one of these cute, color-changing, poisonous fish often leads to death by paralyzing the respiratory system. How the pufferfish obtains its neurotoxin is somewhat of a mystery.
Watch this video of 10 cool puffer fish facts, or read below the list of facts.
10 Cool Facts About Pufferfish
Did you know pufferfish is the most poisonous fish on earth? They can change colors based on mood and are responsible for constructing these mysterious underwater crop circles!
ALSO READ/WATCH: Sloth facts and Gross Freshwater snail facts
10. Living water balloons
Pufferfish normally look like this… with a thin tail and a cute, box-shaped head. But when threatened, they will unhinge their jaw and gulp down an incredible amount of water.
The pufferfish has no ribs and a folding stomach, so it that can expand up to 3 times its original size in a matter of seconds… like a water balloon!
It now appears more intimidating and hopefully is too big to fit in the mouths of any would-be predators.
This defense adaption comes at a cost. The pufferfish’s stomach does not help with food digestion, so its intestines must do all the work!
Puffing above the surface will result in a stomach full of air, which can be challenging to burp out. Air in the stomach throws off buoyancy and is often fatal.
9. Like a chameleon
The pufferfish shares two amazing traits with Chameleons. The first trait is that both animals can move their eyes independently. Focusing on two objects simultaneously combined with 360-degree vision is valuable while hunting and hiding.
My dwarf puffer, “Little Fish”, could easily see me from across the room and always found me before I found him.
The 2nd shared trait with chameleons is the ability to change colors. They mainly use this ability as an active camouflage to avoid predators. Hiding is much less stressful than blowing up.
Puffers can change from light to dark and from colorful to transparent. They also change colors based on their moods.
8. A vast diversity
There are over 120 species of pufferfish living around the world today. They come in all sorts of beautiful colors and sizes and they thrive in many different habitats.
My pea puffer comes from the brackish tidal rivers of India and is less than 1 inch long!
The Giant Mbuna Pufferfish patrols the freshwater of the Congo river and can grow to over 2 feet long.
The famous Porcupinefish lives all around the globe in warm saltwater reef ecosystems.
The only place none of the species can survive is in extremely cold waters.
Pufferfish have no scales and instead have particular stretchy skin. It is rough and thick but offers worse protection than standard fish scales… especially against poor water chemistry, microbes, and parasites.
Some pufferfish, like the porcupinefish, have evolved sharp spines to help with their defense, and they belong to the family “Diodontidae.”
True pufferfish belong to the family “tetraodontidae” and are more vulnerable.
7. Deadly Tetrodotoxin
Pufferfish are the most poisonous fish living today. In fact, if you include all vertebrates, only the poison dart frog is considered to be more toxic to humans.
Not very creatively, scientists named the neurotoxin contained in the “Tetraodontidae” family “Tetrodotoxin,” which is a kind of tongue twister, so we’ll just call the neurotoxin found in the pufferfish “TTX” for short.
TTX is 1,200 times more potent than cyanide. The average pufferfish contains enough TTX to kill 30 humans, and no antidote exists.
TTX blocks cell signaling that usually occurs through voltage-gated sodium ion channels.
A high enough dose will paralyze your diaphragm or heart resulting in death.
But don’t worry, pufferfish cannot inject this poison into other animals when you are swimming. In fact, the only way to be poisoned by a pufferfish is to eat it.
Puffers concentrate this neurotoxin in the liver, sex organs, and skin.
6. Becoming nontoxic and symbiosis
Until recently, scientists thought pufferfish produced TTX using their own cells, but when puffers were grown in a closed, clean aquaculture system or in aquariums, an interesting discovery was made.
After several years some populations became nontoxic.
What was going on? Why would living in isolation cause a puffer to stop producing neurotoxin?
Well, it turns out pufferfish do not actually produce TTX, even though it is named after them. Certain bacteria actually synthesize TTX, but only in low non-lethal concentrations.
What is going on is that the TTX-producing bacteria and the pufferfish are in a symbiotic relationship. The puffer is hosting the microbe in its gut.
The bacteria get a free share of the puffer’s food, and in exchange, the pufferfish absorbs the bacteria’s toxic waste.
Pufferfish are immune to TTX and collect it as a deterrent.
5. Natural predators
Most animals will die or get very sick if they eat a Pufferfish loaded with TTX, but most predators aren’t very well-educated about pufferfish.
Tiger sharks are the most notorious hunters of ocean-dwelling pufferfish.
They can even eat the spiked, Porcupinefish variety! Tiger sharks are big enough to swallow it, even when inflated, and they are immune to neurotoxins.
Eels can also tolerate TTX, but they are a smaller predator, and the pufferfish might get stuck in their throat.
Some snakes can eat smaller species of puffers. They evolved resistance in the past during an evolutionary arms race with Newts. Newts contain the same poison as pufferfish.
Overall, pufferfish are hard to observe in nature, and any animal who enjoys eating fish could swallow a puffer if the inflation defense doesn’t scare it off.
Poison just isn’t the best defense because it only works as a deterrent after a predator has already learned from a mistake.
Interestingly, dolphins have been seen gently chewing on a pufferfish and passing it to their friends. Low doses of TTX from the puffer’s skin are thought to induce a euphoric high feeling in dolphins.
4. Fugu
Of course, humans HAD to figure out a way to eat pufferfish, well, relatively safely safely
In Japan, “Fugu” is an exotic pufferfish meal served at expensive restaurants.
TTX is not naturally concentrated in the muscles, so chefs simply serve raw white meat. It is thinly sliced and laid out on a fancy plate. It is also sometimes served like sushi.
Traces of the neurotoxin in the meal sometimes gives people a numb and tingly feeling in their mouth, but most people enjoy fugu for the excitement of eating a potentially deadly item.
TTX is tasteless, colorless, and odorless to humans. The molecule can not be destroyed by cooking so a few people die eating pufferfish every year.
Some restaurants cheat to guarantee safety… remember those aquafarms with nontoxic pufferfish?
Also, Fugu is usually served in winter when pufferfish are less toxic. But, why is pufferfish less toxic in the winter?
3. Spawning and underwater crop circles
The breeding season is during summertime. Puffers are extra toxic during this time because a strong scent of TTX is an attractive mating quality.
The male “Torquigener” pufferfish has an even better way of attracting females.
He digs a mysterious crop circle in the sand. Its geometry is mesmerizing, and it seems unnatural or alien.
Can you think of some other complex geometric structures made by animals? The honeycomb is the first thing that comes to my mind.
If the male built a good crop circle, a female would come by and lay eggs in the center. He then externally fertilizes them and defends the nest until they hatch.
Other species perform mating dances or show off their colors. Some attach eggs to seaweed while others allow the eggs to free float on the surface.
2. Beaks and diet
Like a hamster, pufferfish have four evergrowing teeth. The two on top are fused into wide teeth plates.
The bottom two are also fused, forming a false “beak.”
Because these teeth grow forever, a pufferfish must constantly grind them down. If the teeth grow too long, they can seal the mouth shut, resulting in starvation.
Overgrown teeth are common in pet pufferfish whose owners didn’t provide enough hard foods or shells in their diet.
In the wild, pufferfish are omnivores. They like to eat small fish, clams, coral, crabs, snails, shrimp, algae, worms, and other invertebrates.
Hopefully, one of these prey items carries some living TTX-producing bacteria, so the puffer can become toxic.
1. Strange swimmers
For a fish, puffers are relatively slow swimmers, but they are very maneuverable more like a hummingbird than like an eagle.
They beat their little pectoral fins so fast that you can barely see them flapping.
The big tail is usually folded and curled up to help with turning.
At slow speeds, they can swim backwards or forward. They can smoothly rotate on any axis.
This stealthy movement allows them to use those chameleon eyes to snatch a snail out of its shell precisely or ambush a passing fish.
Pufferfish are not streamlined for high speeds; if they puff, everything worsens!
When filled with water, a pufferfish can barely do anything because it now weighs about 3times its previous weight too much mass for those little fins to push along!
The pufferfish’s slow swimming speed and its relative fearlessness of humans make it one of my favorite diving buddies!
FINAL THOUGHTS
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