Guinea fowl puffer fish
| Guinea fowl puffer fish | ||||||||||||
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Guinea fowl pufferfish ( Arothron meleagris ) |
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| Systematics | ||||||||||||
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| Arothron meleagris | ||||||||||||
| Lacepède , 1798 |
The guinea fowl puffer ( Arothron meleagris ) lives in the coral reefs of the Indo-Pacific . Its distribution area extends from the coast of East and South Africa to Japan , Easter Island and Panama . It lives in shallow, coral-rich zones, no deeper than 25 meters.
The fish grow to a length of 50 centimeters and owe their name to the many white dots that cover their black bodies. There is also a yellow non-dotted color form.
The guinea fowl puffer fish feeds on coral polyps , which it eats by completely biting off the tips of branch-shaped corals such as acropores . It also eats sponges , bog animals , mollusks , crabs , sea squirts , algae , foraminifera and detritus .
It is popular as a resident of public show and zoo aquariums, but cannot be socialized with invertebrates .
literature
- Hans A. Baensch / Robert A. Patzner: Mergus Sea Water Atlas Volume 6 Non-Perciformes (Non-Perciformes) , Mergus-Verlag, Melle, ISBN 3-88244-116-X
Web links
- Guinea fowl puffer fish on Fishbase.org (English)
