The ringed toadfish (''Omegophora armilla'') is a species of puffer in the family

Tetraodontidae 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 ...

. It grows up to in length, and is poisonous to consume. It has a

black Black is a color which results from the absence or complete absorption of visible light. It is an achromatic color, without hue, like white and grey. It is often used symbolically or figuratively to represent darkness. Black and white have o ...

ring surrounding its pectoral fins, and an oval-like body covered in small spines.

Distribution, habitat, and feeding

It lives in

seagrass beds A seagrass meadow or seagrass bed is an underwater ecosystem formed by seagrasses. Seagrasses are marine (saltwater) plants found in shallow coastal waters and in the brackish waters of estuaries. Seagrasses are flowering plants with stems and ...

, rocky reefs, and sandy bottoms from 1 to 146 meters deep. It is found in the eastern

Indian Ocean The Indian Ocean is the third-largest of the world's five oceanic divisions, covering or ~19.8% of the water on Earth's surface. It is bounded by Asia to the north, Africa to the west and Australia to the east. To the south it is bounded by th ...

, around southern

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a Sovereign state, sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous List of islands of Australia, sma ...

. Its prey consists of small,

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, making it a carnivore.

Conservation

It is sometimes

bycatch Bycatch (or by-catch), in the fishing industry, is a fish or other marine species that is caught unintentionally while fishing for specific species or sizes of wildlife. Bycatch is either the wrong species, the wrong sex, or is undersized or juve ...

ed in Australian fisheries, and its aquatic resources are being harvested, but these factors do not impact it much. It has no specific threats, and its distribution overlaps with

marine protected area Marine protected areas (MPA) are protected areas of seas, oceans, estuaries or in the US, the Great Lakes. These marine areas can come in many forms ranging from wildlife refuges to research facilities. MPAs restrict human activity for a conserv ...

s, so it has been listed as

Least Concern A least-concern species is a species that has been categorized by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) as evaluated as not being a focus of species conservation because the specific species is still plentiful in the wild. T ...

by the

IUCN Red List The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List of Threatened Species, also known as the IUCN Red List or Red Data Book, founded in 1964, is the world's most comprehensive inventory of the global conservation status of biol ...

Taxonomy

''O. armilla'' is one of two species in its genus, alongside the bluespotted toadfish (''

Omegophora cyanopunctata ''Omegophora cyanopunctata'', known as the bluespotted toadfish or bluespotted puffer, is a species of pufferfish in the family Tetraodontidae. It is a marine, reef-associated species endemic to Australian waters, where it ranges from Gulf St Vin ...

''), with which it overlaps.

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q65079844 Tetraodontidae Marine fish of Southern Australia ringed toadfish