Panther Puffer

Facts about the Panther Puffer, it is a sea and estuarine fish that belongs to the genus Takifugu of the Tetraodontidae family. The scientific name of the fish is Takifugu pardalis and it is indigenous to brackish and salty waters of the northwest Pacific Ocean, but some species are seen in freshwater of Asia or more extensively found in the Indo-Pacific area. These toxic fish species protect themselves by blowing up their bodies to a number of times as its usual body size and by transmitting poison to their predators. These protections facilitate the fish to explore their surroundings actively without much apprehension of being assaulted.

Features

The Panther Puffer is a big size puffer that attains a maximum body length of 14 inches (35 cm) when matured. These Panther Puffer fish species have physically powerful teeth, which grow all through their lives. The Panther Puffer have to be offered solid shelled live food frequently to stay their teeth worn down. As they consume a meaty diet and are habitually messy eaters, these fish species will produce a huge bio load on the organic filter of the aquarium, requiring recurrent water changes and good upholding practices.

The Panther Puffer is characterized by a rough skin that is habitually covered with petite spinulous scales, a dental plate, similar to a beak, which is divided by a medium suture, a split-like gill opening anterior to the bottom of its pectoral fin. These Panther Puffers have neither pelvic fins nor fin spines, but they usually have only one short-based dorsal fin, anal fin, without ribs. The Panther Puffers are competent to inflating their stomachs with water when disturbed or frightened and are competent to produce and accumulate toxins, like saxitoxin and tetrodotoxin in their gonads, skin and liver. The level of toxicity differs according to species, and according to geographic region and season, as well.

The Panther Puffer is a moderate, coastal, demersal class over rock-strewn, grimy, or mud-covered bottoms, including in seagrass beds in shallow waters at depths varying from 3.3 feet to 66 feet (1 meter to 20 meters). In the Zostera dock beds off central Japan, juvenile Panther Puffers feed mostly on caprellidean gammaridean amphipods, whereas adults feed mostly on hard-shelled creatures, such as bivalves, gastropods and crabs. These Panther Puffer fish species were more likely to be seen in the grimy microhabitat close to seagrass beds, rather than in the beds themselves.

The liver and ovaries of the Panther Puffer are very poisonous, the intestine and skin are also highly poisonous, but the testes are a little toxic, and the flesh is usually supposed to be harmless. However, in some fish species, the flesh has been found to be poisonous, as well.

Diet

The Panther Puffer is chiefly predatory fish, and in the wild, it also feeds on algae. In the aquarium, the Panther Puffer is fed with foods, such as crustaceans, shellfish, and hard shelled foods, like snails. The Panther Puffer is also nourished with a huge variety of all types of frozen and live meaty foods. However, these Panther Puffer fish species need to be fed several times a day, they are nourished with small quantities of foods, such as prawn, frozen or live blackworms and bloodworms, crabs or crabs legs, mussels and silversides.

The maximum lifespan of the Panther Puffer is 10 years.