The Puffer Forum

Yesterday I was noosing around on the website of ITIS (Integrated Taxonomic Information System), the site where animals are being classified by the right family/species after they were discovered by biologists, and i came around the wierdest coolest unknown puffers! Most of the puffers we know from the databases are the ones we can buy or because atleast one of us have owned one. On ITIS all puffers are indexed by anatomy as they are known by scientists so it's very cool to have a look.

As we know all puffers are classified in the family Tetraodontidaete and they are divided in 2 sub-families; the Canthigasterinae and the Tetraodontinae.

A funny thing to point out btw is that porcupines are not pufferfish but porcupinefish! They fall outside the Tetraodontidaete family and are part of the Diodontidae family (both are part of the sub-order Tetraodontoidei of which all porcupinefish, puffers en tétrodons are part of). So the term "Porcupine puffer" is incorrect. The fish is either a porcupine or a puffer, but not both.

Canthigasterinae

Within the Canthigasterinae sub-family there is only one Genus and that are the sharpnose puffers, the Canthigaster Genus. But within this Genus there are way more species then the 6 sharpnose puffers we currently acknowledge in our database:

Canthigaster Genus (33 species)


Tetraodontinae

Within the Tetraodontinae sub-family there are a lot of different Genus and most of them have several different species:

Amblyrhynchotes Genus (1 species)
Arothron Genus (13 species)
Auriglobus Genus (4 species)
Carinotetraodon Genus (6 species)
Chelonodon Genus ((3 species)
Chonerhinos Genus (2 species)
Colomesus Genus (2 species)
Contusus Genus (2 species)
Ephippion Genus (1 species)
Feroxodon Genus (1 species)
Guentheridia Genus (1 species)
Javichthys Genus (1 species)
Lagocephalus Genus (10 species)
Liosaccus Genus (1 species)
Marilyna Genus (3 species)
Omegophora Genus (2 species)
Pelagocephalus Genus (1 species)
Polyspina Genus (1 species)
Reicheltia Genus (1 species)
Sphoeroides Genus (23 species)
Takifugu Genus (24 species)
Tetractenos Genus (2 species)
Tetraodon Genus (26 species)
Torquigener Genus (19 species)
Tylerius Genus (1 species)

So there are in total 154 different pufferfish discovered and classified but within our puffer-community we only know a little tip of the iceberg!! If you start googling random puffers from this index that you have not heard of you come across the coolest puffers we all probably have never seen before.

oooh, some of them are amazing looking!

Thank you for posting that

Not to detract from this .... but I think Corvus has pointed this out in the past to some extent.

well I have searched for ITIS posts before i posted this... nothing came up!

I just meant that he's touched on the different classifications ... not that there's been anything specifically on ITIS. I wasn't trying to detract from your find, please understand, only saying that Corvus has mentioned the different classifications in the past, although not to the degree of the information you've found.

Just my personal opinion, but if a fish can puff up I see no harm in calling it a "puffer" as a common name!

Paris for example isn't even a porc, she's a burrfish, but you should see her puff! Spiky basketball floating in my living room!

Myaj wrote:Paris for example isn't even a porc, she's a burrfish, but you should see her puff! Spiky basketball floating in my living room!

Thank you for that Myaj, I'd been feeling a bit down this morning (for no reason) and that put a BIG smile on my face

LOL @ Paris. I really am in love with that fish.

It's interesting to see that they don't use the genus Monotrete at all.

Troender wrote:LOL @ Paris. I really am in love with that fish.

It's interesting to see that they don't use the genus Monotrete at all.

Yes, it's a little outdated with regard to puffers... like fishbase is in some puffer topics

pufferpuggirl wrote:I just meant that he's touched on the different classifications ... not that there's been anything specifically on ITIS. I wasn't trying to detract from your find, please understand, only saying that Corvus has mentioned the different classifications in the past, although not to the degree of the information you've found.

aaaw.. don't worry! I was not offended, I was just pointing out that I tried to find a similar topic first before I posted mine. Just to avoid a double post


But Corvus? on what ground/experience do you claim this is outdated? Aint it so that a trained biologist looked at the fish and classified it? Who are we, as hobbyists to say they are wrong? Or did they later on reviewed their opinion and altered it?


And to all you porcupine lovers! It's not that im telling people not to use the term porc puffer, i just found it a cool fact that i found out on my own that officially they are not classified under puffers but are classified seperately. By all means keep calling them porcupine puffers, I know I will

Troender wrote: It's interesting to see that they don't use the genus Monotrete at all.

Aye... the whole Monotrete Genus is classified under the Tetraodon Genus. I am really interested and intrigued why we classify them as a seperate Genus. Do you know why Corvus?

I don't pay too much attention to genus names, but I do believe not too long ago "they" changed all the classifications around a bit, I remember having to change some of the scientific names in the Pufferpedia to reflect the new classifications.

Ah that explains a lot. Wonder why they did not alter it on ITIS tho. I thought the ITIS was the official site for classification. Guess there is another site? Or are they just lazy?

I got lost in a link loop without any pics

the links only show the listing of the Genus species

if you want pwetty pictures, just start image googling random names

nope nope ... personally I don't like it. It is not idiot friendly. I took this as an exaample:
Tylerius spinosissimus prickle blaasop

When I googled the images I got a few different results, which would add to the confusion. If they posed the pic of the fish they used to make the determination that would eliminate confusion. Who's to say the pic results from google are not mislabeled? Without a detailed description of the specimen taken.. names are just that..