''Chelonodon'' is a

genus Genus ( plural genera ) is a taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of extant taxon, living and fossil organisms as well as Virus classification#ICTV classification, viruses. In the hierarchy of biological classification, genus com ...

pufferfishes Tetraodontidae is a family of primarily marine and estuarine fish of the order Tetraodontiformes. The family includes many familiar species variously called pufferfish, puffers, balloonfish, blowfish, blowies, bubblefish, globefish, swellfish ...

native to the

Indo-Pacific The Indo-Pacific is a vast biogeographic region of Earth. In a narrow sense, sometimes known as the Indo-West Pacific or Indo-Pacific Asia, it comprises the tropical waters of the Indian Ocean, the western and central Pacific Ocean, and the ...

. They are mainly found in coastal regions and

estuaries An estuary is a partially enclosed coastal body of brackish water with one or more rivers or streams flowing into it, and with a free connection to the open sea. Estuaries form a transition zone between river environments and maritime environment ...

, but sometimes in rivers.

Species and taxonomy

There are five recognized species in this genus: * '' Chelonodon bengalensis'' (Habib ''et al.'', 2018) * ''

Chelonodon dapsilis ''Chelonodon dapsilis'', known as the plentiful toby, is a species of pufferfish in the family Tetraodontidae. It is native to the Western Pacific, where it is endemic to Australia. It is a tropical fish found in both marine and brackish environm ...

'' Whitley, 1943 (plentiful toby) * ''

Chelonodon laticeps ''Chelonodontops laticeps'', also known as the bluespotted blaasop, is a species of pufferfish in the family Tetraodontidae. It is native to the western Indian Ocean on the coast of Africa, from South Africa north to Tanzania, and around Madagasc ...

J. L. B. Smith James Leonard Brierley Smith (26 September 1897 – 8 January 1968) was a South African ichthyologist, organic chemist, and university professor. He was the first to identify a taxidermied fish as a coelacanth, at the time thought to be long ex ...

, 1948 (blue-spotted blaasop) * ''

Chelonodon patoca ''Chelonodontops patoca'', also known as the milk-spotted pufferfish, milkspotted puffer, milkspotted toadfish, Gangetic blow fish, Gangetic pufferfish, or marbled toad, is a species of pufferfish in the family Tetraodontidae native to the Indo- ...

'' ( F. Hamilton, 1822) (milk-spotted puffer) * ''

Chelonodon pleurospilus ''Chelonodontops pleurospilus'', commonly known as the blaasop beauty, is a species of pufferfish in the family Tetraodontidae. It is a marine species endemic to South Africa, where it ranges from the mouth of the Xora River to Durban Durban ...

'' (

Regan The family name Regan, along with its cognates O'Regan, O Regan, Reagan, and O'Reagan, is an Anglicized form of the Irish surname Ó Riagáin or Ó Ríogáin, from Ua Riagáin. The meaning is likely to have originated in ancient Gaelic ''ri'' ...

, 1919) (blaasop beauty) The

type species In zoological nomenclature, a type species (''species typica'') is the species name with which the name of a genus or subgenus is considered to be permanently taxonomically associated, i.e., the species that contains the biological type specimen ...

of ''Chelonodon'' is ''

Leiodon cutcutia ''Leiodon cutcutia'',Kottelat, M. (2013)The Fishes of the Inland Waters of Southeast Asia: A Catalogue and Core Bibliography of the Fishes Known to Occur in Freshwaters, Mangroves and Estuaries. ''The Raffles Bulletin of Zoology, 2013, Supplem ...

'', making the genus name a

synonym A synonym is a word, morpheme, or phrase that means exactly or nearly the same as another word, morpheme, or phrase in a given language. For example, in the English language, the words ''begin'', ''start'', ''commence'', and ''initiate'' are all ...

. As a consequence, Catalog of Fishes and other authorities instead place the above five species in ''Chelonodontops''.

FishBase FishBase is a global species database of fish species (specifically finfish). It is the largest and most extensively accessed online database on adult finfish on the web.

, however, still uses ''Chelonodon''.

References

Tetraodontidae Ray-finned fish genera Taxa named by Johannes Peter Müller {{tetraodontiformes-stub