The Threetooth Puffer (the last survivor of a once-great family)

Behold! This is Triodon macropterus, the majestic Threetooth puffer.  It is the only living species within in the genus Triodon and the family Triodontidae.  The Threetooth puffer grown to slightly longer than half a meter (about 20 inches) and it lives in deep pelagic waters of the Indo-Pacific from Madagascar to French Polynesia.

The three-tooth puffer is a strange fish with a body deeper than it is long, thanks to an enormous inflatable belly flap. This flap has a giant false eye spot on each side, and, when it is inflated with seawater, the fish’s pelvis descends at an angle, giving the impression of a giant terrifying sea monster head emerging from the deeps.

Although the fish is now taxonomically isolated in its own family(!) it has a robust paleontological history and fossils of extinct genera have been found dating back the Eocene when they must have flourished in the vast warm seas which covered so much of the world in that iceless epoch.   Although they are so rare today, that it is hard to speak of their habits and biology, perhaps the three-spot puffer has a bright outlook in the warm acidic oceans which seem to lie in the world’s future. It could be that the genetic bottleneck will expand as pockets of Triodons speciate to live in yet unknown ecosystems.  Or more-likely humankind’s abuse of the oceans will destroy this last branch of a once-robust taxonomical tree.

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