Research

As a part of the diodontidae family, porcupinefish is a creature that has the amazing ability to increase its size as a defense against predators.  The word diodontidae means “two teeth”, the porcupinefish is classified as such because of its two teeth that are fused into their upper and lower jaws.  Their upper jaw is referred to as a crushing plate, which assists in the crushing of hard bodied prey, such as molluscs and sea urchins.   The porcupinefish inflates by swallowing water.  It does this when it senses danger, making it harder for some predators to attack, due to their size.  The fish has many spines on its body, around its eyes, and around its mouth that stick up when the fish expands.  This is yet another defense mechanism used to defend against those predators which are large enough to ingest them.   These spines are held in by are series of roots, commonly either two roots or three.  Also in some of the fish the roots are known to contain tetrodotoxin a chemical found in the skin, spines and intestines that will poison their.   These fish normally have a light tan to brown coloring, while blacks, greens, grays, and yellows are not uncommon.  The spines on the fish have a thin layer of skin over them which also carry the coloring pattern.  The underside of the fish is generally white.  These colors allow them to be camouflaged with their environment. The porcupinefish live on the bottom of the ocean generally around rocky reef and coral.  This means that the fish are found in and round the waters of Central and South America, the southern coast of the United States (generally around Florida on both the
Gulf of Mexico
Coast and the Atlantic Ocean coast, and around the coast of Texas), the Mediterranean, and in the
Indian Ocean.