This entry was posted on Monday, July 14th, 2008 at 12:33 am and is filed under About, Adventure Cruises, Information, Sites, Snorkeling, Snuba. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
Porcupinefish Courtesy of Fishbase.org
In ancient Hawaiian times, according to Mary Pukui, author of many Hawaiian language books, these fish had an interesting tie to the Pandanus, or pineapple leaf, both having similar looking spines. Both spines and flesh of the fish were considered to be poisonous, even though this fish was `aumakua (family god) for many. In Hawaiian this fish is known as kókala.
With their large gold-brown eyes, this fish is said to be nocturnal, feeding on most anything that doesn’t swim away like sea urchins, crabs, mollusks, and hermit crabs. Similar in several ways to puffers, these cute ones can also inflate, have a short gill opening in front of the pectoral fins, and no pelvic fins, and they have spines, which may be 3 rooted and fixed, or 2 rooted and movable, depending on the species. Usually the spines lie flat until the animal is inflated; natures deterrent — finely tuned. In our local aquarium these animals are fed clams, which they crush like humans do sunflower seeds. They have powerful jaws and beak-like crushing plates. They also seem to have personalities as witnessed with many species of fish, and some of these animals seem to really relish eating squid at the aquarium. Also witnessed at the aquarium is how they can make subtle color and pattern changes in their skin, light tan to really dark brown.
Japanese nationals have told me that this animal is also eaten there and treasured (like puffers), but others have said they would not trust the flesh of this very toxic porcupine puffer.
When snorkeling you may see this species traveling in pairs, but being alone is the way most seem to like it. Interesting researcher’s tidbit: the tiger shark doesn’t seem to mind this fish’s toxicidity or spines and will eat porcupinefish. As always, when snorkeling make sure no one is fish feeding. In Molokini, an amazing tuff cone offshore, these fish are a little rare and fish feeding there is illegal. Along Maui’s beaches, these fish may hide during the day, but if food is being offered they will appear. Although usually slow moving they can be coerced to take food from a diver’s hand. I did have a short conversation with a diver who did just that and wound up in emergency with a crushed finger tip. Another great way to validate most water lovers ‘no feeding the wildlife‘ policy.
