Also know as the blowfish, there are over 120 species of pufferfish,
and not all of them are found in the world's oceans.
In fact, around a quarter of pufferfish species are actually freshwater fish.
What's more, the largest of the puffers, the giant pufferfish, is a freshwater fish.
The freshwater varieties can be found in South America, central Africa, and southeast Asia,
while the saltwater species are only found in warm, coastal waters.
They are not found in cold water areas - sticking mainly to the tropics and rarely temperate regions.
So I guess Antarctica is out again!
Pufferfish range in size from a tiny 1 inch in length to nearly 3 feet - a record held by the aforementioned giant.
These sizes are pre-puff mind you.
When a pufferfish does feel threatened, the fish gulps down a huge amount of water in less than a second.
Their stomachs have the ability to super-extend kind of like when Chester breaks into the food cabinets.
It's believed that pufferfish evolved to do this because they are relatively inadequate swimmers,
and they are baaaasically too slow to swim away.
At least they're cute, though, right?
Besides the puff, I'm sure you've heard of their other defense mechanism, as well.
Aside from engorging themselves to much large than their typical size - making them too big
for most predators mouth's - nearly all pufferfish are highly toxic creatures.
Apparently I have a knack for picking animals that could probably kill you...
I'm not really sure what's up with that, because there's more to come!
If a predator managed to sneak up on a pufferfish unnoticed and gulp it down in one bite,
it would probably regret its decision within a few hours.
Due to bacteria most pufferfish synthesize from foods they eat, they produce enough toxin to kill 30 humans!
Few animals are able to tolerate this toxin and many will die if they are unfortunate enough to ingest a pufferfish.
However, some predators such as tiger sharks and sea snakes, are unaffected by pufferfish toxin.
Even humans partake in consumption of the deadly creatures!
In Japan, pufferfish are considered a delicacy and are consumed on a regular basis.
Chefs who prepare fugu train for many years before serving to customers because one wrong cut
could spell disaster.
Even with all that training there are still deaths due to consumption of pufferfish.
Up to 6 people die annually from eating fugu.
However, of those, it is typical that the deaths occur either outside of restaurants or because diners
demand the liver which is the most toxic part of the fish.
Still, it's enough that the emperor himself has been banned from eating this meal.
The toxin is stored in various parts of the pufferfish including the spines, ovaries, liver, and skin.
Yes, skin!
Pufferfish are scaleless fish which are covered in, you guessed it, skin!
They can range anywhere from being dully colored in order to blend in with their environment
to brightly colored in a display of just how lethal they can be.
They typically eat algae and invertebrates with the larger species cracking into clam shells and muscles
with their beak-like teeth.
Kind of like the parrotfish we talked about in an earlier episode except with, y'know, crustaceans and not coral...
Pufferfish display many different tactics of reproduction.
Some freshwater pufferfish will reproduce in covered areas where vegetation is heavy.
In aquarium environments, it's been observed that pufferfish will lay eggs that adhere to smooth sufaces
such as slate.
And the male with remain with the eggs until they hatch.
In the ocean, males will bring females to the surface where she will release her eggs and they'll remain
there until the young puffers are ready to swim back down to the ocean floor.
One species, the white spotted pufferfish, had scientists baffled for over a decade with their radical reproduction.
These guys actually make ripply circles in the ocean floor in order to attract a mate.
If the female is interested in the circle, she will enter and lay her eggs in the middle.
So they're baaaaaasically the aliens of the ocean
and for years scientists had no clue what caused these crop circles on the ocean floor.
Typically, a female will lay just under 10 eggs which will hatch anywhere from a few days to week
after fertillization.
Depending on the species, the young pufferfish will usually develop for a bit
growing their limbs AFTER hatching before joining the community from which their parents came.
Pufferfish can live nearly ten years in the wild.
For more information on the pufferfish, feel free to browse through my citations in the description below.
Let me know which animal you would like to see next in the comments.
Thank you for watching, and be sure to give a thumbs up for more Animal Fact Files.