Giant puffer fish
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Giant pufferfish ( Arothron stellatus ) |
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| Arothron stellatus | ||||||||||||
| ( Anonymous , 1798) |
The giant puffer fish ( Arothron stellatus ), also known as the star puffer fish , is the largest puffer fish with a maximum length of 1.20 meters.
Occurrence
The giant puffer fish lives in the Red Sea and in the Indo-Pacific from east and South Africa to southern Japan , Tuamotu and Lord Howe Island . On the south coast of South Africa it also reaches the south-eastern Atlantic . The giant puffer fish is relatively rare. Young giant puffer fish are mostly found on sandy and muddy bottoms and in estuaries. Older animals prefer clear lagoons , fringing and outer reefs . Giant puffer fish feed mainly on echinoderms and other hard-shelled invertebrates such as snails, mussels and crustaceans .
features
Young giant puffer fish have a dense stripe pattern of brown-black and yellow-white lines curved backwards from the belly upwards. With increasing age, the line pattern, starting at the back, dissolves and becomes a dense dot pattern. Adult fish are 1.20 meters long. The skin is flaky and covered with small spines.
Fin formula : dorsal 10–12, anal 10–11
literature
- Hans A. Baensch , Robert A. Patzner: Mergus Sea Water Atlas Volume 6 Non-Perciformes (non-perch-like) . Mergus-Verlag, Melle, ISBN 3-88244-116-X
- Ewald Lieske, Robert F. Myers: Coral fish of the world . Year Top Special Verlag Hamburg, ISBN 3-86132-112-2
- Dieter Eichler, Robert F. Myers: Coral fish Indo-Pacific . Jahr-Verlag GmbG & Co., ISBN 3-86132-225-0
Web links
- Giant puffer fish on Fishbase.org (English)