The Puffer Forum

This isn't one of a puffer in the wild, but a really cool video.



I love how at 2:15 it looks at the cameraman/owner and gives him the "What? No more food? Give me more!" look LOL.

cool vids keep em coming

but the guy with the stick was an idiot...

Found a new pic on google.

Here is a Tetraodon lineatus puffed up over Lake Nasser in Sudan/Egypt (lake is in both countries, the pic page didn't specify which):


This is where I found the pic:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/16179203@N08/1743656966/

oh wow

look at the size of that!!! hahaha

Found another pic off the BBC's website of another Fahaka Puffer puffed up in Lake Nasser, Africa:

OK, let's please top posing those horrid pics of a puffer's very possible demise being taken out of the water to puff with air for pics. This thread is about puffers in the wild. That means IN the water!

Pufferpunk wrote:OK, let's please top posing those horrid pics of a puffer's very possible demise being taken out of the water to puff with air for pics. This thread is about puffers in the wild. That means IN the water!

The first one was caught on a rod and reel...and the person who photographed it said after it put it back in the water it deflated and swam away...

The other one, being a BBC photo... I am sure they didn't kill it.

Besides a puffer puffing up doesn't always equal death... I don't see how they are horrid pics either... It's not like the video of a fahaka that was posted earlier that was caught and a local kid was playing with it trying to put a stick in it's mouth... Or the video (now removed) of someone shaking their puffer in a net to get it to puff up...

I respect your opinion, especially since you are the owner here...but I think you're overreacting if you are talking about the pics I posted...

Obviously those puffers puffed up not because they were stressed (well, not stressed in the thinking that they are being viciously attacked, etc) but as a defense mechanism that they feel threatened and they don't know if the guy who's holding the rod and reel is actually a crocodile or otter or something that wants to eat it...

I'm not saying it's healthy for a puffer to puffer up, just saying that those particular pics weren't horrid (at least in my opinion) and weren't (at least for the first pic) of the puffers demise...

The guy that uploaded the first pic wrote this on that page:

Please do not stress, there were no puffer fish hurt in the making of this photo!! they are all returned to the water where they happily swim away. I will be uploading more piccies of puffer fish, as this one has quite a following!! thank you

Here's a porcupine puffer apparently puffing up for no reason at a zoo park:


Not in the wild but to show my point that puffers puffing up doesn't mean that they are immediately in mortal risk... It's kind of like that urban myth that after three puffs they die, or if they inflate with air they die, etc... They didn't evolve that way after millions of years to drop dead after puffing up or if they happen to suck in air...

Don't take my comment so personally. I was talking about ALL the pics of puffers puffing with air--which is totally different than puffing with water.