''Lactophrys triqueter'' also known as the smooth trunkfish, 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 ...

boxfish Ostraciidae is a family of squared, bony fish belonging to the order Tetraodontiformes, closely related to the pufferfishes and filefishes. Fish in the family are known variously as boxfishes, cofferfishes, cowfishes and trunkfishes. It contains ...

found on and near reefs in the

Caribbean Sea The Caribbean Sea ( es, Mar Caribe; french: Mer des Caraïbes; ht, Lanmè Karayib; jam, Kiaribiyan Sii; nl, Caraïbische Zee; pap, Laman Karibe) is a sea of the Atlantic Ocean in the tropics of the Western Hemisphere. It is bounded by Mexico ...

Gulf of Mexico The Gulf of Mexico ( es, Golfo de México) is an oceanic basin, ocean basin and a marginal sea of the Atlantic Ocean, largely surrounded by the North American continent. It is bounded on the northeast, north and northwest by the Gulf Coast of ...

and subtropical parts of the western

Atlantic Ocean 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 ...

.Matsuura, K. (2014): Taxonomy and systematics of tetraodontiform fishes: a review focusing primarily on progress in the period from 1980 to 2014. ''Ichthyological Research'', 62 (1): 72–113.

Taxonomy

The names ''Lactophrys triqueter'' and ''Rhinesomus triqueter'' are

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 ...

ous. The former is accepted by the Encyclopedia of Life but the World Register of Marine Species and FishBase recognize ''Rhinesomus triqueter'' as the valid name. ''R. triqueter'' is a species of ''

Lactophrys ''Lactophrys'' is a genus of boxfishes native to the western Atlantic Ocean. All trunkfish of the genus ''Lactophrys'', secretes a colorless toxin from glands on its skin when touched. The toxin is only dangerous when ingested, so there is no imm ...

''.

Description

The smooth trunkfish has an angular body sheathed in plate-like scales, growing to a maximum length of , though is a more normal size. The Smooth Trunkfish is the most difficult fish to catch in the Atlantic Ocean. The body is enclosed in a bony

carapace A carapace is a Dorsum (biology), dorsal (upper) section of the exoskeleton or shell in a number of animal groups, including arthropods, such as crustaceans and arachnids, as well as vertebrates, such as turtles and tortoises. In turtles and tor ...

and, when viewed from the front, is triangular in shape with a narrow top and wide base. The fish has a pointed snout with protuberant lips encircling a small mouth. The tail is shaped like a brush. The general background colour is dark with a pattern of small white spots, often in hexagonal groups giving a honeycomb-like appearance in the middle area of the body. The tip of the snout and the area round the pectoral fins are dark with few spots and the eyes are black. The fins are usually yellowish with a dark base and tips. They have only soft rays with no spines.Smooth trunkfish (''Lactophrys triqueter'')
Marine Species Identification Portal. Retrieved 2012-01-01.''Lactophrys triqueter''; Linnaeus, 1758
Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute. Retrieved 2012-01-01. The juveniles have dark coloured bodies covered in large yellow spots. As they get older, they develop a pale area where the honeycomb markings will later appear.

Distribution

The smooth trunkfish is found down to a depth of about on

coral reef A coral reef is an underwater ecosystem characterized by reef-building corals. Reefs are formed of colonies of coral polyps held together by calcium carbonate. Most coral reefs are built from stony corals, whose polyps cluster in groups. Co ...

s and over sandy seabeds in the Caribbean Sea, Gulf of Mexico and the western Atlantic Ocean. The range extends from

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...

and the

Gulf of Maine The Gulf of Maine is a large gulf of the Atlantic Ocean on the east coast of North America. It is bounded by Cape Cod at the eastern tip of Massachusetts in the southwest and by Cape Sable Island at the southern tip of Nova Scotia in the northeast ...

southwards to

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 ...

Biology

The smooth trunkfish is normally solitary but sometimes moves around in small groups. It uses its protuberant lips to expel a jet of water which disturbs the sandy seabed and reveals any shallowly buried

benthic The benthic zone is the ecological region at the lowest level of a body of water such as an ocean, lake, or stream, including the sediment surface and some sub-surface layers. The name comes from ancient Greek, βένθος (bénthos), meaning "t ...

invertebrate Invertebrates are a paraphyletic group of animals that neither possess nor develop a vertebral column (commonly known as a ''backbone'' or ''spine''), derived from the notochord. This is a grouping including all animals apart from the chordate ...

s. It feeds on small

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 ...

polychaete worms Polychaeta () is a paraphyletic class of generally marine annelid worms, commonly called bristle worms or polychaetes (). Each body segment has a pair of fleshy protrusions called parapodia that bear many bristles, called chaetae, which are m ...

acorn worm The acorn worms or Enteropneusta are a Hemichordata, hemichordate class of invertebrates consisting of one order of the same name. The closest non-hemichordate relatives of the Enteropneusta are the echinoderms. There are 111 known species of aco ...

peanut worms The Sipuncula or Sipunculida (common names sipunculid worms or peanut worms) is a class containing about 162 species of unsegmented marine annelid worms. The name ''Sipuncula'' is from the genus name ''Sipunculus'', and comes from the Latin ' ...

, small

crustacean Crustaceans (Crustacea, ) form a large, diverse arthropod taxon which includes such animals as decapods, seed shrimp, branchiopods, fish lice, krill, remipedes, isopods, barnacles, copepods, amphipods and mantis shrimp. The crustacean group ...

sponge Sponges, the members of the phylum Porifera (; meaning 'pore bearer'), are a basal animal clade as a sister of the diploblasts. They are multicellular organisms that have bodies full of pores and channels allowing water to circulate through t ...

s and

tunicate A tunicate is a marine invertebrate animal, a member of the subphylum Tunicata (). It is part of the Chordata, a phylum which includes all animals with dorsal nerve cords and notochords (including vertebrates). The subphylum was at one time ca ...

Uses

In some regions, the smooth trunkfish is caught for human consumption. It is also sometimes kept in

reef aquaria A reef aquarium or reef tank is a marine aquarium that prominently displays live corals and other marine invertebrates as well as fish that play a role in maintaining the tropical coral reef environment. A reef aquarium requires appropriately ...

. Caution needs to be used however as it produces a toxic substance,

ostracitoxin Pahutoxin, formerly called ostracitoxin, is a neurotoxin present in the mucous secretions of boxfish ( Ostraciidae) skin, while under stress. It is an ichthyotoxic, hemolytic, nonpeptide (which is relatively unusual, although similar to tetrodot ...

, in

mucous Mucus ( ) is a slippery aqueous secretion produced by, and covering, mucous membranes. It is typically produced from cells found in mucous glands, although it may also originate from mixed glands, which contain both serous and mucous cells. It is ...

secretions from the skin. When the fish is stressed this is liberated into the water and some aquarium tanks and systems have been poisoned by this with the loss of all the other animal inhabitants.The Puffers Called Box-, Cowfishes, family Ostraciidae
WetWebMedia. Retrieved 2012-01-01.

References

External links

* {{Taxonbar, from=Q28797668 Ostraciidae Fish of the Atlantic Ocean Fish described in 1758 Taxa named by Carl Linnaeus