''Colomesus psittacus'', the Banded puffer, parrot puffer or South American estuarine puffer, is a

species In biology, a species is the basic unit of classification and a taxonomic rank of an organism, as well as a unit of biodiversity. A species is often defined as the largest group of organisms in which any two individuals of the appropriate s ...

pufferfish 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, swellfis ...

found all along the Western

Atlantic The Atlantic Ocean is the second-largest of the world's five oceans, with an area of about . It covers approximately 20% of Earth's surface and about 29% of its water surface area. It is known to separate the " Old World" of Africa, Europe an ...

coastline of South America from the

Gulf of Paria The Gulf of Paria ( ; es, Golfo de Paria) is a shallow (180 m at its deepest) semi-enclosed inland sea located between the island of Trinidad (Republic of Trinidad and Tobago) and the east coast of Venezuela. It separates the two countries ...

down to the mouth of the

Amazon River The Amazon River (, ; es, Río Amazonas, pt, Rio Amazonas) in South America is the largest river by discharge volume of water in the world, and the disputed longest river system in the world in comparison to the Nile. The headwaters of t ...

Brazil Brazil ( pt, Brasil; ), officially the Federative Republic of Brazil (Portuguese: ), is the largest country in both South America and Latin America. At and with over 217 million people, Brazil is the world's fifth-largest country by area ...

Description

The coloration of this fish is green above, white below, and patterned with black transverse bands across the dorsal surface. Compared with ''

Colomesus asellus ''Colomesus asellus'', the Amazon puffer, asellus puffer, South American freshwater puffer or Peruvian puffer is a species of pufferfish confined to the Amazon Amazon most often refers to: * Amazons, a tribe of female warriors in Greek mytho ...

'', the black bands on the back are much thinner, and it also lacks a distinctive black band that rings the base of the

caudal fin Fins are distinctive anatomical features composed of bony spines or rays protruding from the body of a fish. They are covered with skin and joined together either in a webbed fashion, as seen in most bony fish, or similar to a flipper, as se ...

. This species grows to a length of SL. This species is known to have edible flesh but a toxic liver but whether it contains saxitoxin or

tetrodotoxin Tetrodotoxin (TTX) is a potent neurotoxin. Its name derives from Tetraodontiformes, an order that includes pufferfish, porcupinefish, ocean sunfish, and triggerfish; several of these species carry the toxin. Although tetrodotoxin was discovered ...

(as is the case with many marine puffers) is not known.

Ecology

It is a

euryhaline Euryhaline organisms are able to adapt to a wide range of salinities. An example of a euryhaline fish is the molly (''Poecilia sphenops'') which can live in fresh water, brackish water, or salt water. The green crab (''Carcinus maenas'') is an e ...

species that moves freely between freshwater and the sea. The natural diet of ''Colomesus psittacus'' is

carnivorous A carnivore , or meat-eater (Latin, ''caro'', genitive ''carnis'', meaning meat or "flesh" and ''vorare'' meaning "to devour"), is an animal or plant whose food and energy requirements derive from animal tissues (mainly muscle, fat and other sof ...

and consists mainly of

molluscs Mollusca is the second-largest phylum of invertebrate animals after the Arthropoda, the members of which are known as molluscs or mollusks (). Around 85,000 extant taxon, extant species of molluscs are recognized. The number of fossil sp ...

. In the

aquarium An aquarium (plural: ''aquariums'' or ''aquaria'') is a vivarium of any size having at least one transparent side in which aquatic plants or animals are kept and displayed. Fishkeepers use aquaria to keep fish, invertebrates, amphibians, aq ...

they eat a variety of invertebrates including snails, clams and shrimps. Like other pufferfish, they have the ability to inflate themselves when threatened, making themselves much larger and therefore more difficult for predators to handle or swallow.

Aquarium keeping

Because of its large size and need for salt water, ''Colomesus psittacus'' is rarely kept in home aquaria, but it is otherwise similar to ''Colomesus asellus'' in terms of maintenance. It is not a schooling species and may be aggressive towards others of its species, so is usually kept alone.

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q2617715 Tetraodontidae Fish described in 1801