Greetings again my dear readers of this prestigious platform, we will continue with our purpose of getting to know some of the beautiful living species of the extraordinary aquatic world, and this way, in this opportunity we will link in a general way with the curious, but attractive marine species known as puffer fish, all this with the firm purpose of continuing to highlight the vital balance that must exist between all of us, that is, living species of this majestic planet Earth.

In this thematic series, we have been able to highlight in a general way how our behavior on many occasions manages to affect any species that cohabits with us in our precious home, and marine species have not escaped such actions, and also without realizing it we are harming ourselves and the future of each of the future living species, however, it is also fair to indicate and highlight as we have already done, that there are human beings who have understood our wrong actions and work in the search for such a desired balance, and for this, they implement essential and wonderful tools such as science and technology, in the creation of wonderful tools like the one you can see below as the mini-robots.

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In the previous image we can see how these small mini-robots are about the size of a grapefruit and whose technology allows us through sensors to know variables such as temperature and analyze in this way some events of certain marine species such as the form of migration and certain time, among other important characteristics, therefore, it is important to highlight the influence of this type of technological applications in our knowledge about the beautiful marine species.

Thanks to each of the contributions provided by the scientific field, technology has managed to advance exponentially for the protection of our ecosystem, therefore my dear readers we could say that technology is nothing more than applied scientific knowledge, that is, technology is nothing more than applied science, and each of us human beings can be reliable witnesses of the above described, we just have to find the right balance in relation to the use of such technological applications.

Therefore, in this opportunity we will relate to the puffer fish and in this way we will know some of its characteristics, and to begin with we can say that this curious fish is also known by the name of sea porcupine, and this we can see in the animated image at the beginning of this article, this fish is in the family Tetraodontidae, this feature of being able to swell or grow like a balloon is clearly considered as a defense mechanism coupled with an extremely toxic substance.

The puffer fish to be able to inflate absorbs water or air, and they do this at certain times when they feel threatened or are attacked, and to inflate avoid being swallowed by their predators, as for its size we can say that we can find it from 2, 5 centimeters long as is the dwarf puffer fish to the freshwater puffer fish that manages to reach 61 centimeters in length, and the puffer fish do not have scales, their eyes are large circular and black, they lack both dorsal and pelvic fins and their average life span is between 8 to 10 years.

Another interesting aspect to highlight is the fact that these puffer fish are considered the marine species with the worst character, and so much so that when they live in captivity it is recommended that they are isolated in a single tank because they eat other species and even fish of the same species, as for their diet we can say that they feed on insects, snails, worms, as well as some species of invertebrates and algae, and larger puffer fish eat mussels and shellfish.

Sometimes these fish are swallowed by other marine animals before they can inflate, however, as we said before, another defense mechanism that these fish have is their poison which is super deadly, for example, for us humans this poison is so deadly that represents approximately 1200 times more poisonous than cyanide, and with this it can kill 30 adult people and the most worrying thing is that no antidote has been created, however, as a positive aspect of this poison we can say that it is in the process of analysis to be supplied as an analgesic to patients with cancer.

The biggest predator for this type of marine species is man, since in many parts of the planet, when fishing this type of fish, it is inflated by absorbing air and people let them dry in the sun, since in this way it preserves its balloon shape, and they use them as a decorative piece, Another aspect that has also put it in danger of extinction is the fact that the meat of this fish is considered a delicious delicacy in Asian countries such as Japan, although it represents a high danger of poisoning by the consumption of this type of meat because of its dangerous poison.

It is always important to learn about any living species of our planet, and especially the beautiful marine species, and in this case we did it with the striking puffer fish, where we could learn about some of its particular characteristics, until another opportunity my dear readers.

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Note: The gif at the beginning of this article is my own, and the images were created in Power Point and the animated gif in PhotoScape.

Bibliographic references consulted and recommended

[1]THE PUFFER FISH

[2]Peces globo