Bandtail puffer

Bandtail puffer
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Actinopterygii
Order: Tetraodontiformes
Family: Tetraodontidae
Genus: Sphoeroides
Species: S. spengleri
Binomial name
Sphoeroides spenglerpia
(Bloch, 1785)
Bandtail puffer (Sphoeroides spengleri)

Bandtail puffer, Sphoeroides spengleri, is a species in the family Tetraodontidae, or pufferfishes.[1] It can grow to a length of about 30 cm and is common in the Caribbean and observed from Massachusetts, USA in the north to Santa Catarina, Brazil in the south.[2]

Biology

The bandtail puffer is usually found on seagrass beds and coral reefs, and mostly close to the bottom, where it finds adequate cover and is less likely to be spotted by predators. The preferred food items are molluscs, crustaceans and echinoderms.

References

  1. An anonymous review of volume I of Lacépède's Histoire naturelle des poissons (in the Allgemeine Literatur-Zeitung, 1798, columns 673–680) was apparently the first publication to Latinize several of Lacépède's genera; in this case Lacépède's name was Sphéroïdes.
  2. Froese, Rainer, and Daniel Pauly, eds. (2008). Species of Sphoeroides in FishBase. June 2008 version.
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