Porcupinefish - Pufferfish
& Triggerfish

Group 10: Odd Shaped Swimmers

Porcupinefish - Pufferfish & Triggerfish

Groep 10 - Vreemd gevormde zwemmers: Deze groep vissen bevat families die ongebruikelijk zijn qua vorm, maar eerder zwemmers zijn dan bodembewoners.

Reef Cornetfish (pez corneta, Fistularia commersonii)

Cornetfish are very long slender members of the Trumpetfish family, reaching a size of up to 6 feet. Their mouths are flared at the end like a coronet. To confirm their ID, look for a long, whip-like filament on the end of their tail. (Size 1.5-3 feet, max 4 ft.)

Balloonfish (pez erizo, Diodon holocanthus)

Balloonfish are the smaller of our two porcupinefish. Their long spines and clear fins are both ID keys. Think of a long spine to pop a clear balloon. (Size 8-14”, max 20”)

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1. Disks and Ovals / Colorful

The first category of disk and oval shaped fish are very important to learn. They are colorful, large and very obvious and the three main families that make up the group can be found on almost every dive.

2. Silvery Fish

Silvery fish have many different family members, though we will look at just a few representatives. As opposed to the colorful butterfly, angel and surgeonfish, the silvery fish tend to blend in better in open water and are usually not found near the colorful bottom.

3. Sloping Head / Tapered Body

This third group of “fish-like” fish, are very important to learn. The are common on most dives and are also highly sought after as food fish. It is especially important to monitor these fish to provide data for fisheries management. Snappers can be very difficult to tell apart from the similarly shaped grunts. One helpful hint is to look at their tails. Snappers tend to have straight, flat tails. They are also known for their habit of snapping their mouth open and shut when caught on hook and line. They have very sharp canine teeth that can provide a nasty bite to the unsuspecting angler. Look closely on your next dive and you may see the small teeth protruding from the side of the mouth. Grunts on the other hand, have slightly notched tails. They get their name from the grunting sounds they emit when threatened. These sounds are created by rubbing together bony teeth plates located in the back of the throat. Since the teeth are in the throat, a diver will never see protruding teeth on a grunt, only big blubbery fish lips.

4. Small Ovals / Damselfish

While divers tend to first notice the larger, more obvious fish on a dive, after a short while the challenge to find new species leads them to change their search image to look for smaller, previously unnoticed fish. Generally, the first new species a diver will encounter will belong to the small oval shaped group. This group is broken into the damselfish and their close cousins the chromis. Damsels are like the surgeonfish in that they eat algae. They do not roam around grazing, but rather tend to small algae gardens like a farmer. These areas are guarded fiercely as the algae farm is the damsels food source. For that reason you can think of the damselfish as not just territorial, but Dam- selfish with its territory. Many damselfish have distinctly different colors as juveniles, often being much brighter and more colorful when they are young and becoming drab with age. (much like us humans!) For this reason, the juveniles have been heavily collected for the aquarium trade and are under heavy fishing pressure. As part of the REEF Fish Survey Project, divers are asked to monitor the juveniles and adults separately in two of the damselfish species – the Cortez damselfish and the giant damselfish.

5. Heavy Body / Large Lips

Heavy bodied, large lipped fish belong to the seabass family. We tend to refer to the larger seabasses as groupers and the smaller seabasses as bass or basslets. These fish are extremely important food fish and are under increasing threats from heavy fishing pressures. Monitoring these fish can help provide valuable data to aid in their protection. Most seabasses are hermaphrodites, meaning the same fish will be both a male and a female during its lifetime. The groupers are all born female and later change sex to become male. Most large groupers also congregate each year to spawn at a specific location, making them easy targets for emerging positioning and fishing technology.

6. Swim with Pectorals / Obvious Scales

The fish in this group all use their pectoral fins to swim with rather than the traditional tail swimming of most other fish. The scales are also quite large and obvious. These fish can also be hermaphrodites, like the groupers, with some fish changing sex and others staying the same. Intermediate and adult fish often have very different appearances compared to the always-male terminal phase. This means learning two colors to be able to ID the same species of fish. Most of the pictures shown in this curriculum are terminal phase males, unless noted.

7. Redish / Big Eyes

This group of reddish fish is normally not seen during day dives due to their nocturnal nature. The reddish color helps them blend in at night and the large eyes help them to see better.

8. Small, Elongated Bottom Dwellers

The small bottom dwelling fish often make up the most interesting fish to watch during your dive. Their approachable nature and interesting behaviors make them great fishwatching finds. Blennies tend to be slightly larger than gobies, but are most easily recognized by their curved body posture and expressive faces. Gobies, though similar in their habitat requirements, tend to sit flat and straight on the bottom. The jawfishes actually live in a burrow in the sand that they excavate and maintain.

9. Odd-Shaped Bottom-Dwellers

This category of fish is made up of families and species that didn’t quite fit anywhere else due to their unique body shapes.

10. Odd-Shaped Swimmers

This group of fish contain families that are unusual in their shape, but are swimmers rather than bottom dwellers.

11. Eels

Though looking like snakes, eels are fish. There are several different types of eels, and we will look at two – garden eels that live in burrows in the sand and moray eels. Moray eels have a bad reputation mainly due to the constant opening and closing of their sharp toothed mouths. However, this is not a threat to divers, as this action pumps water through their gills. Most eels are actually very shy.

12. Sharks & Rays

Even though the sharks and rays are cartilaginous (their skeletons are made of cartilage instead of bones), they are still referred to as fish and count during our surveys.

5 Fun Facts - Pufferfish

Kogelvissen zijn het bewijs van de diversiteit en het wonder van het onderwater leven. Hun unieke kenmerken en gedrag blijven duikers en snorkelaars fascineren. De familie van de kogelvissen bestaat uit meer dan 120 soorten en is niet alleen mooi, maar speelt ook een cruciale rol in het delicate evenwicht van onze onderwaterecosystemen, waardoor ze voor zowel snorkelaars als duikers een genot zijn om te observeren. Hier zijn enkele leuke weetjes over deze opmerkelijke vissen:

BLOG - Pufferfish in Costa Rica

Opblaasbare supersterren: kogelvissen staan bekend om hun vermogen om zichzelf op te blazen als ze worden bedreigd. Ze slokken water (of lucht) op om op te blazen en veranderen in een intimiderende balachtige vorm om roofdieren af te schrikken. Door dit verdedigingsmechanisme kunnen ze meerdere keren hun normale grootte lijken!

Dodelijke delicatessen: Sommige soorten kogelvissen, vooral de Japanse fugu, worden in de Aziatische keuken als delicatessen beschouwd. Ze zijn echter ook zeer giftig. Voor mensen is tetrodotoxine dodelijk, tot 1200 keer giftiger dan cyanide. Er zit genoeg gif in één kogelvis om dertig volwassen mensen te doden, en er is geen tegengif bekend. Chef-koks die fugu bereiden, ondergaan een strenge training om ervoor te zorgen dat ze de giftige delen verwijderen en alleen het veilige, heerlijke vlees serveren.

Efficiënte roofdieren: Ondanks hun trage en onhandige uiterlijk zijn kogelvissen bekwame roofdieren. Ze gebruiken hun scherpe snavels om schelpen te verpletteren en prooien met harde doppen zoals krabben en slakken te consumeren.

Zorgen over natuurbehoud: Kogelvispopulaties worden bedreigd door vernietiging van leefgebieden, overbevissing en de illegale handel in huisdieren. Sommige soorten worden als kwetsbaar of bedreigd beschouwd, wat het belang benadrukt van natuurbehoudsinspanningen om deze intrigerende wezens te beschermen.

Schattige mijnenvelden: hier in Guanacaste vertonen de kogelvissen heel uniek gedrag. Op sommige lokale duikplekken vinden we grote scholen kogelvissen bij elkaar. Estudiantes is een van de beste duikplekken waar je tussen deze schattige kleine drijvende mijnenvelden kunt duiken.

Porcupinefish - Pufferfish
& Triggerfish

Group 10: Odd Shaped Swimmers