The long-spine porcupinefish (Diodon holocanthus), also known as the freckled porcupinefish, porcupine puffer, and porcupine pufferfish, is a species of marine fish in the family Diodontidae.[1]
The long-spine porcupinefish is pale in color with large black blotches and smaller black spots; these spots becoming fewer in number with age. It has many long, two-rooted depressible spines particularly on its head. The teeth of the two jaws are fused into a parrot-like "beak". Adults may reach 50cm (20inches) in length.[2] The only other fish with which it might be confused is the black-blotched porcupinefish (Diodon liturosus), but it has much longer spines than that species.[3]
The long-spine porcupine fish is an omnivore that feeds on mollusks, sea urchins, hermit crabs, snails, and crabs during its active phase at night.[4] They use their beak combined with plates on the roof of their mouths to crush their prey such as mollusks and sea urchins that would otherwise be indigestible.[5] [6]
The long-spine porcupinefish has a circumtropical distribution, being found in the tropical zones of major seas and oceans:
They are found over the muddy sea bottom, in estuaries, in lagoons or on coral and rocky reefs around the world in tropical and subtropical seas.[7]
Spawns at the surface at dawn or at dusk in pairs or in groups of males with a single female; the juveniles remain pelagic until they are at least 7cm (03inches) long.[2] Young and sub-adult fish sometimes occur in groups.