The Puffer Forum

Hey Corvus, someone who is a member of the puffer forum group on facebook said you wanted to see my picture of the tiny green procupine puffer i saw at my lfs the other day. here it is,



sorry about the poor quality. This was taken with my camera phone. I personally visually identified them as Diodon holocanthus, but as you can see, one of them is bright green. There was a second, equally tiny porcy that was also green in that tank.

I can tell you right now, he's not gonna be able to ID that blurry pic.

I'm making this request at the request of that fella on facebook. I don't doubt my eyes that they are porcupine puffers. Whether they were dyed or not, I can neither confirm nor deny this.

Thank you for posting it but PP is right about the blurry pic and I know it is hard to get good pics of fish. That why I dont post pics on here, just too blury..lol

I post pics fine here, just not from a phone.

Pufferpunk wrote:I can tell you right now, he's not gonna be able to ID that blurry pic.

I agree.

Cannot exclude that they are dyed, but don't think this is probable, especially since they are said to be so tiny.

Larvae of Diodon holocanthus are yellow with reddish dots and the smallest juveniles are between yellow and olive. Maybe in combination with tank lights this color can be seen. Would need a better pic to be sure.

Small D. hystrix are often blue (just as D. eydouxii - which with proper lights may also look like the pictures, in the last year apparently this species has occured in trade here and there) and D. nicthemerus has yellowish spines.

Here's a nice ID key for the genus, should be sufficient to determine the species with the fish in front of you or proper pictures. http://diodon349.com/ss349/key.htm