Despite having a rather bulky body, the golden box puffer fish still swims as fast as an arrow to catch prey using its tail fin .
The yellow fish with black spots shaped like a square box you are seeing has the scientific name Ostracion cubicus , commonly known as round-backed pufferfish or yellow pufferfish . They live mainly on coral reefs in the Pacific, Indian Ocean and southeast Atlantic Ocean, mainly eating small prey (small worms, crustaceans, mollusks and small fish…) and fragments. Organic debris on the reef surface.
The whole body of the fish is like a box with black spots on a yellow background.
The body color is bright yellow, there are round black spots all over the body, the whole body of the fish is like a box with black spots on a yellow background. Because the golden box puffer fish likes to live alone and is very shy, this black spot and bright yellow skin serves as a warning to potential predators outside.
When attacked or threatened, the skin of the golden box puffer fish will release a characteristic neurotoxin Ostracitoxin. Many people have tried to breed it but failed, the reason is that if kept in a relatively closed water area, such as an aquarium, the toxins released can kill other fish in the tank.
The golden box puffer fish has a square, rectangular body that resembles a plastic box with fins attached. Despite its clumsy appearance, this fish can wriggle into the nooks and crannies of coral reefs and catch shrimp. Pim Boute, a doctoral student at Wageningen University, the Netherlands, and his colleagues discovered how the golden box pufferfish uses its tail fin to move in research published on April 8 on the Royal Society Open Science site.
Box puffer fish with a box-shaped body. (Photo: NYT).
Most fish from minnows to sharks have pliable bodies, allowing them to follow the movement of water currents. But the box puffer fish has a hard armor layer linked together to form a box around the body, acting as armor to protect them from predators but limiting flexibility. Therefore, when they want to move, box puffer fish only use their fins, according to Boute.
Most fish species have soft, elongated bodies adapted to the water environment, allowing them to swim comfortably. However, the body of the golden box puffer fish has a hard, box-shaped skeleton, very different from the fish we commonly know, even making people wonder if there is something wrong in the evolution of the fish. they? How can they swim with this boxy, square body?
However, what no one expected was that although it looks slow, the golden box puffer fish is extremely agile, it can almost be considered one of the most agile fish in the coral reef area.
If you look closely, you can see its tail stuck to its body.
Based on previous research as well as underwater observations, Boute speculates that the tail fin is an important factor in creating undulating movements in the horizontal plane. To test this hypothesis, Boute and his colleagues used a plastic 3D model of a tailless pufferfish. They dropped the model into the tank, used thin rods to hold it in place and pumped water through it as if the real fish were swimming while a sensor measured the fake fish’s rotational force.
The team repeated the process several times, each time changing the angle of the fake fish relative to the water flow. Then, they performed the same experiment with a model with a tail fin attached. They tested the fin in many positions such as spreading out, reaching straight or pointing left or right.
Researchers found that without a tail fin, pufferfish depend on the rushing water . But its widely spread tail helps it stay stable no matter what angle its body is at with respect to the water flow. Meanwhile, the closed tail allows the fish to cope with the effects of water coming from many different angles. This shows that by spreading, closing or bending its tail, pufferfish can control body movements at will.
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