Porcupine Fish Identification

Series Summary

There are thousands of fish species in the Caribbean Sea and Atlantic Ocean. Identifying these fish can be a daunting task, but well worth the effort. Fish identification is made easy by using fish identification charts to help a scuba diver or snorkeler to identify the fish. However, video of live fish is even better for helping you with your fish identification when you are snorkeling or scuba diving. In this free video series learn how to identify various species of Caribbean fish from expert Don Stark. Don will show you video of wild Caribbean fish such as the Porcupine Fish, the Juvenile Spotted Drum, the Garden Eel, the Gray Angelfish, the Balloon Fish, the Ocean Surgeonfish, and many more. In addition to the fish identification video, Don's expert advice will help you with Caribbean fish identification and Atlantic fish identification. Watching this free video series will help you with Butter Hamlet identification, Yellowhead Wrasse identification, and Blue Runner identification. Happy scuba diving and snorkeling!

Video Transcript

"The marine organism we're going to identify now is the porcupine fish. There are many members of the puffer fish family of fish that you can see in the tropical waters of the Atlantic and Caribbean, but the largest by far is the porcupine fish. Porcupine fish are normally one to two feet long, but can reach a length of up to three feet. Their bodies are largest at the head and taper down to the tail. They have very large eyes that always look a little sad to me. Their mouths are small and somewhat down turned. porcupine fish are generally brown to grayish in color, and have many small dark spots covering their body and their pectoral fins. Their bodies are also covered with many short spines that normally lay flat against their body, but those spines are one element in their two part defense mechanism against predation. Why do they need two different defense mechanisms? They need them because they are fairly slow and awkward swimmers. The first defense mechanism is their ability to inflate their bodies by swallowing water or air. This increases the size of their physical presence by almost double. They can get nearly round like a basketball, which makes them much more difficult for a predator to swallow. The second defense mechanism are those spines. Although normally flat against their body so they are more streamlined for swimming, when threatened, and they puff up, the spines also extend straight out from their body, increasing the appearance of their size even more, and making them a prickly food item for any predator to try and bite or swallow. The primary predator of adult porcupine fish in the tropical waters are an occasional shark. Porcupine fish are primarily nocturnal feeders, spending much of the daytime hiding out in caves or under ledges on reefs. Their diet consists of primarily crustaceans, urchins, and other hard shelled animals. Their dental work has evolved to enable them to be very efficient shell crushers. All of their teeth are fused into upper and lower crushing plates. Their large eyes help them see their prey at night. Porcupine fish generally breed once a season. There are male and female porcupine fish, although you would probably have to be a porcupine fish to tell them apart. They are broadcast breeders, which means that the mating pair swim close to each other, and release their eggs and sperm into the water column. That's the porcupine fish."