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Porcupinefish — printable fact sheet
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Porcupinefish
Diodon hystrix
The porcupinefish takes the pufferfish's defence and adds a second layer to it. Like its relatives it does not inflate with air but gulps water into an enormously elastic stomach, ballooning into a sphere too large for a predator's mouth, and it has no ribs and no pelvic girdle …
Did you know?
- Unlike pufferfish, porcupinefish have both spines and toxins as dual defense mechanisms, making them especially difficult for predators to eat.
- It inflates with water rather than air, and its spines lie flat until inflation stands them on end. It has no ribs, which would otherwise resist the expansion. Its tetrodotoxin is deadlier than cyanide by weight — and it comes from bacteria in its food, not from the fish. Its teeth are fused into a beak that grows continuously and must be ground down on urchins and crabs.
What I learned
Draw the porcupinefish
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