Pufferfish an odd ball with spikes

To break my blog up a bit and so you don't have get lots of boring budgets, cleaning adverts for shops I've visited I thought I add a little fishy profile. I start of with the fish I'm not going to keep in my tank these will be the fish seen as non reef friendly or will get to big for my aquarium, I'll then add profiles for the fish I have purchased.

So here's the first one.
  

Common Name:	Puffer Fish
Scientific Name:	Tetraodontidae
Origin:	Equator
Diet:	Omnivore
Size (L):	17cm - 60cm (7in - 24in)
Water Type:	Fresh, Brackish, Salt
Optimum pH Level:	5.7 - 6.4
Life Span:	4 - 8 years
Conservation Status:	Least Concern

There are around 120 known species of puffer fish, the second most poisonous creature on the planet after the Golden Poison Frog. The puffer fish is found in tropical waters worldwide, but they rarely go into the cooler waters.

Biologists think puffer fish, also known as blow fish, developed their famous “inflatability” because their slow, somewhat clumsy swimming style makes them vulnerable to predators. In lieu of escape, puffer fish use their highly elastic stomachs and the ability to quickly ingest huge amounts of water (and even air when necessary) to turn themselves into a virtually inedible ball several times their normal size. Some species also have spines on their skin to make them even less palatable.

If a fisherman catches a puffer fish, they will never touch the spikes as they are highly toxic to humans and animals.

Although there are a number of animals that prey on the puffer fish, these predators often meet with a nasty end. When the puffer fish is threatened it inflates it's body with air exposing the long, sharp, toxic spikes which normally intimidates the predator into retreating. If however, an animal does manage to eat the puffer fish, it will often be poisoned by the toxins in the spikes or the toxin that is released from the organs of the puffer fish when it dies.

Despite the toxins in the puffer fish, some animals such as sharks are able to eat the puffer fish without becoming harmed. It is important also to know that not all species of puffer fish are actually poisonous and these species are preyed upon by larger fish, sharks and also humans.

Despite the puffer fish having such a deadly toxin, there are some species of puffer fish whose meat is eaten in Japan and Korea as a local delicacy. Special chefs are trained to cut the fish so that the fish does not poison the consumer. Other species of puffer fish produce and release a toxin into their organs when they die to harm the thing that ate them.

Emmy award-winning filmmaker John Downer was filming the upcoming two-part miniseries Dolphins: Spy in the Pod when he noticed that bottle nose dolphins would gently chew on a puffer fish and then pass it to another dolphin in the pod. He noticed that after chewing on the puffer fish, the dolphins would look very tranquil and dazed. Then it hit him: these dolphins were getting high on the nerve toxin released by the puffer fish.

If his prior knowledge of puffer fish toxin wasn’t an indication of what these dolphins were doing, their subsequent behaviour was a dead giveaway. They spent a great deal of time observing their own reflection on the water’s surface and acting very strange in general.

Downer’s crew was able to get this inside look through creative spy cameras, similar to what has been used for many of his other documentary miniseries. Underwater shots were taken with fish-shaped cameras while above water shots were taken with a camera that looks like a inconspicuous sea turtle. With the dolphins surrounded by cameras that looked like normal, everyday sea creatures, they were more relaxed and exhibited behaviour that may not have been captured with traditional filming techniques.

The smallest species of puffer fish in the world is the dwarf puffer fish (also known as the pea puffer fish and the pygmy puffer fish). The dwarf puffer fish is tiny growing to just an inch in length, which is a few centimetres. Despite the fact that the dwarf puffer fish is related to larger species of puffer fish, the dwarf puffer fish is not found in the sea but in just one river in India.

One amazing little puffer fish has been found to be capable of creating elaborately designed 'crop circles' at the bottom of the ocean as part of an elaborate mating ritual. The behaviour was first documented by a photographer named Yoji Ookata who later returned with a film crew from the Japanese nature show NHK which later aired an episode about the fish.

Even as articles bounced around the web it was still difficult to imagine how a tiny fish could create such a large design in the sand, even when staring directly at photographic evidence. Finally, video has emerged that shows just how the little guy delicately traverses the sand in a rotating criss-cross pattern to create a sort of sub aquatic Spirograph. The textured sand sculpture not only attracts mates but also serves as protection when the fish pair and lays eggs.