Defense Mechanism in Puffer Fish

Introduction:
The puffer fish is a medium-sized species of fish. They are generally
found in tropical or warm waters around the world. They are slow
swimmers and well known for their unique defense mechanism.

Unpuffed Puffed

Defense Mechanism
Pufferfish will “puff up” as a defense mechanism if they are threatened. It inflates by
rapidly pumping water or air into their stomach. It gets converted into round shape
by expanding its size to more than double. They stick out sharp, poisonous spikes to
hurt and keep their enemies away.

Other names
These fish also lack some ribs and have no pelvis which allows them to become ball-
shaped without breaking any bones. Due to their ability to expand into ball-shaped,
they are also called blow fish or balloon fish.

Poisonous
Most puffers are poisonous and toxic. They carry neurotoxin in their
organs and on their skin. This can be very dangerous for other animals
as well as humans. The toxin of a pufferfish is so much poisonous that it
can kill 30 adult humans.