Seal Faced Pufferfish in the Great Barrier Reef

Common Name: Puffer Fish
Family: Tetraodontidae

Related to Porcupine Fish, Puffer fish puff up when they are upset or feel threatened. Otherwise they are quite normal looking (see picture above) and they have small pectoral fins compared the size of their bodies.. They do not fit the normal description of a streamline fish.  When puffed up their bodies become rigid, making them difficult to swallow. When danger appears they merely inflate their bodies, hide among the corals, and wait patiently for any danger to go away.

Puffers belong to the family Tetraodontidae, which is merely the scientific name for four teeth. Their teeth are fused into two hard beaks, which allow them to crunch through the tough shells of their favourite foods small invertebrates, worms, crustaceans and molluscs. The evolutionary advantage of fused teeth is so successful that other sea creatures have adopted it. Parrotfish for example also have fused teeth and get their name from the beaklike mouth they use to scrape rock-hard corals in search of food.

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