Encyclopedia > Puffer fish

  Article Content

Pufferfish

Redirected from Puffer fish


Pufferfish Tetraodon hispidus
The blowfish or pufferfish is a fish of the family Tetraodontidae (order Tetraodontiformes) named after its ability inflate itself to several times its normal size by swallowing water or air when threatened. The same adaptation is found in the related Porcupinefish, which also have spines. Puffers are also called blowfish or balloonfish.

Pufferfish accumulate the poison Tetrodotoxin from a symbiotic bacterium, which makes them highly poisonous even to humans. Despite this they are prized as a delicacy in Japan, where fugu[?] is carefully prepared by removing the poisonous skin and organs and served as sushi or sashimi.

The pufferfish has the smallest genome of all known vertebrates.

The Blowfish encryption algorithm is named after the blowfish.

External Links



All Wikipedia text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License

 
  Search Encyclopedia

Search over one million articles, find something about almost anything!
 
 
  
  Featured Article
Canadian Music Hall of Fame

... 1978 Guy Lombardo 1978 Oscar Peterson 1979 Hank Snow 1980 Paul Anka 1981 Joni Mitchell 1982 Neil Young 1983 Glenn Gould 1986 Gordon Lightfoot 1987 Th ...

 
 
 
This page was created in 21.4 ms