“…and today we’re talking about a puffy stabber. But more on that later.”
The pufferfish has the incredible ability to inflate itself up like a balloon as a defense mechanism. But the interesting thing about this creature is that that’s not to onlythin interesting about it. If you’re a fish, the easiest thing to catch are the slow moving citizens of the sea, but they usually have armor. The pufferfish knows the only way around that challenge is through in Life, Death, and Taxonomy.
Description of the Oceanic Pufferfish
- Thin silvery baitfish shape
- Silver belly and blue top like a tuna
- Gaping mouth, vacant expression, dead eyes – you know, typical fish stuff
- Dorsal fin is all the way close to the tail parallel to the pelvic fin
- Like a meth-addled hillbilly, they have a whopping 4 teeth to handle their food with.
- But these are more like four sides to a cootie catcher so are a lot more formidable than they sound
- Like sperm whales, their faces are often covered with scars showcasing their battles with squid
- Although it doesn’t have any scales, its skin is tough and is lined with small spines that run along its belly.
Measure Up
Welcome to the beloved Measure Up segment. The official listener’s favorite part of the show! The part of the show when we present the animal’s size and dimension in relatable terms through a quiz that’s fun for the whole family. It’s also the part of the show that’s introduced by you when you send in audio of yourself saying, singing, or chittering the words Measure Up into ldtaxonomy at gmail dot com. We don’t have a new Measure Up intro!
Bloat from Finding Nemo
Length
61 cm (about 24 inches)
A puffer fish is the same length as…
- 1/16,368 a thunder cloud
- 11 Pearl erasers
- One chinchilla
Fact: Thunderclouds can be 24 kilometers (15 miles) long.
Weight
3.2 kg (7 lbs)
The pufferfish is the same weight as…
- 1/214th the heaviest marshmallow
- 56 dandelions
- 9 rabbits feet
Fact: A dandelion plant is about 2 ounces.
Fast Facts about the Oceanic Pufferfish
- Range: found in all tropical and subtropical oceans, at depths of between 10 and 475 m. Originally from the Pacific, Atlantic, and Sea of Japan. But now it covers the globe and has even been found in the Mediterranean
- Diet: crustaceans, squids, and other invertebrates and algae
- Behavior:
- Of course as a pufferfish, it has the ability to suck water (or air) into its extremely elastic stomach to more than triple in volume, pushing out its spines and making it a whole lot harder to get your mouth around, let alone swallow.
- Pufferfish skin and flesh contain a highly toxic substance called Tetrodotoxin, which can be fatal to humans if ingested.
- A single Oceanic Pufferfish liver can kill thirty human adults
- Pufferfish is a delicacy called fugu in Japan.
- Only licensed chefs with years of training can prepare Pufferfish meat.
- Only sharks can eat Pufferfish without any observed negative consequences.
Major Fact: Spikey Chomp
Pufferfish are able to eat soft and hard shelled creatures including lobsters, crabs, and even clams. How?
The first thing that helps in this endeavor is their mouth itself. Pufferfish don’t have traditional teeth. Instead, they sport something called a beak. Not the kind you find on birds. More like a specialized, bony structure in their mouths. The beak grows continuously to avoid wearing down.
But their word monotooth isn’t the only thing that helps them chomp. Pufferfish have a surprisingly strong bite force, thanks to their beak-like teeth that are fused together. This allows them to crush hard-shelled prey like shellfish, mussels, and clams with ease.
The bite force of a pufferfish is estimated to be around 62,050 Newtons, but I didn’t find that on any super official sources and that would put it well above the bite force of a crocodile, which is around 16,000 newtons or 3,700 PSI.
As long as we are talking about dubious claims, there are also reports that they can take human fingers clean off, which isn’t implausible, but no official sources.
What is true is that a few fishermen reeled in a pufferfish and put an aluminum can next to it, and it bit through it like it was a stick of butter.
Ending: So stay toxic, inflate your ego, and take a bite out of grime like the pufferfish here in LDT.