White-spotted puffer
(Arothron hispidus)
General data
The white-spotted puffer (Arothron hispidus) is a medium to large-sized puffer fish, it can reach 50 cm length. It is light grey in color, or greyish or yellowish, and clearly covered with more or less regular white points, that become concentric contrasting white and dark grey lines that radiate around the eyes and pectoral fins. The ventral part is white. The shoulder (around the pectoral fins) is dark. It also has concentric contrasting white and dark grey lines that radiate around the eyes and pectoral fins.
Its distribution extends through the Indo-Pacific area, Red Sea included, to the eastern Pacific Ocean.
It can be found at depths of three to 35 metres. Its habitat types include reefs, lagoons, estuaries, and tidepools. Its diet includes calcareous or coralline algae, molluscs, tunicates, sponges, corals, zoanthids, crabs, polychaetes, starfish, urchins, krill, and silversides.
The adult is nocturnal and solitary. It is territorial, becoming somewhat aggressive.
