Porcupinefish - Spotted Spiny Puffer

You have to love this fish with its bulky shaped head, distinctive black spots covering it's body and those huge cow like eyes.  This porcupinefish was so curious that it kept circling to look at me.  It would back off a little ways and then come in again to look with it's other eye.

Not being a fast swimmer the porcupinefish can inflate itself with water to the size of a basketball as a defensive measure to compensate for it's lack of speed. Like the star puffer and web burrfish described in a previous post, the porcupinefish has fused teeth and powerful jaws to crush hard-shelled invertebrates.

The porcupine is joy to watch as it swims.  The back two fins, the dorsal and anal, are opposite one another and move in sync as it propels through the water.  I said that the porcupinefish is not a good swimmer and that is true but it is amazing at how fast it can move given its perceived anatomical imperfections.

On a dive in Curacao we took a video of a porcupinefish that we had seen on a dive a few days before.  We were delighted that he must have remembered us because he came right up to us.  Notice how his fins move and then at how fast he is moving against the current.  At the end of the video notice Mary trying to out swim the porcupinefish.