Long-spine Porcupinefish

Class: Actinopterygii

Order: Tetraodontiformes

Family: Diodontidae

Genus: Diodon

Species: D. holocanthus

The **long-spine porcupinefish** (*Diodon holocanthus*), also known as the **freckled porcupinefish** among other vernacular names, is a species of marine fish in the family Diodontidae.

Porcupinefish are medium- to large-sized fish, and are found in shallow temperate and tropical seas worldwide. A few species are found much further out from shore, wherein large schools of thousands of individuals can occur. They are generally slow-moving.

Porcupinefish have the ability to inflate their bodies by swallowing water or air, thereby becoming rounder. This increase in size (almost double vertically) reduces the range of potential predators to those with much bigger mouths. A second defense mechanism is provided by the sharp spines, which radiate outwards when the fish is inflated.

Some species are poisonous, having tetrodotoxin in their internal organs, such as the ovaries and liver. This neurotoxin is at least 1200 times more potent than cyanide. The poison is produced by several types of bacteria obtained from the fish's diet. As a result of these three defenses, porcupinefish have few predators, although adults are sometimes preyed upon by sharks and killer whales. Juveniles are also preyed on by *Lysiosquillina maculata*, tuna, and dolphins.

Porcupinefish are eaten as food fish and are an exotic delicacy in Cebu, Philippines, where they are called *tagotongan*.

This species is introduced in “True Lovin”

## Diet

The species' diet includes sea urchins and hard-shelled mollusks.

## History

The porcupine fish (as *Diodon antennatus*) is mentioned in Charles Darwin's famous account of his trip

around the world, *The Voyage of the Beagle*. He noted how the fish can swim quite well when inflated, though the altered buoyancy requires them to do so upside down. Darwin also mentioned hearing that a fellow naturalist, Dr. Allen of Forres, had "frequently found a *Diodon*, floating alive and distended, in the stomach of the shark; and that on several occasions he has known it eat its way, not only through the coats of the stomach, but through the sides of the monster".

## Distribution

The Longspined porcupinefish has a circumtropical in distribution, being found in the tropicalzones of major seas and oceans:

* In the Atlantic it is found from Florida and the Bahamas to Brazil and in the Eastern Atlanticfrom 30°N to 23°S, as well as around South Africa.
* And In the western Indian Ocean from the southern Red Sea to Madagascar, Réunion and Mauritius.
* Also In the Pacific Ocean from southern Japan to Lord Howe Island, and east to the Hawaiian and Easter islands. Also from southern California to Colombia and the Galapagos Islands.

## Description

The long-spine porcupinefish is pale in colour 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 50 cm (20 in) in length. 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

### Diet

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. 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.

## Habitat

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.

## Spawning

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 7 cm (3 in) long.[5] Young and sub-adult fish sometimes occur in groups.