Striped burrfish have large heads and widely spaced bulging eyes. They are brownish in color, with large dark splotches along their bodies. Their eyes are golden-yellow with iridescent blue-green specks in the pupils. Burrfish are covered with short, heavy spines that are always erect—unlike their cousins, the porcupinefish, which have movable spines. They move by undulating or waving their pectoral fins and tails rather than by bending the entire body. Striped burrfish, like all of the burrfish and pufferfish, can take in water to inflate their bodies when threatened.
In the wild they use their powerful beak-like jaws to eat small fish, barnacles, snails, crabs and clams. They have been observed swallowing hermit crabs whole—shell and all.
Striped burrfish usually grow to 10 inches long.
Striped burrfish are abundant from the northern Gulf of Mexico to Brazil. They live in seagrass beds in bays and coastal lagoons and over shallow coastal reefs from Maine to Florida, although they are less common in the northern part of the range.
Striped burrfish are common throughout their range.
Not many predators can get past the burrfish’s formidable spines when it puffs up to full size.
This species is of no commercial value to fisheries, although it is sometimes collected for the pet trade.
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