Fish Id: A Guide To East Coast Fishes

Blowfish, Smoothback Puffer Lagocephalus inermis, Family:Tetrodontidae (Puffers)

Commonly known as Smooth-backed blowfish. Covered in tiny, sandpaper spines. Olive green to dark grey above with silvery yellow sides, belly white. Smooth sides, rough belly. Eyes are large and high on the head. Young fish have 3-4 brown patches and/or spots on the back. Grows up to 3 ft in length. Puff up to 2 times normal size when on the defensive. Two front teeth are fused to cut and crush. Feeds on foods like bits of worm, small shrimp, crabs, clams, etc. Found in shallow bay areas during summer, wintering in deeper waters in the south.

Found here in Great Bay during summers where the water warmed up earlier and reaches aroun 80°. Larger fish (6" or greater) can provide two nice fingerlength fillets of meat. This year I'll see if I can get some pics of how to clean puffers. Ranges: Mass. and Bermuda to Brazil.

This sample fish provided courtesy of Bill Kleinnow.

Puffers

There are about 12 species that may be found on the East coast of the U.S.A. Of those, only the Nothern Puffer is considered edible for safety reasons.

We have only 3 Puffers in our online guide at this time: Burrfish - Northern - Smoothback

MAY NOT BE SAFELY EDIBLE! Most puffers produce tetrodotoxin. "Pufferfish can be lethal if not served properly. Puffer poisoning usually results from consumption of incorrectly prepared puffer soup, fugu chiri, or occasionally from raw puffer meat, sashimi fugu"~Wikipedia.org

Human interaction - Poisioning - Wikipedia
Are pufferfish edible? - Yahoo! Answers
FUGU (BLOWFISH) IN JAPAN

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