Diodon liturosus

Diodon liturosus, commonly known as the Black-blotched porcupinefish, is a large porcupinefish living in tropical waters. It looks a bit like the more well known D. holacanthus, but their base colour is lighter, white-crème instead of crème-beige and the patches on their body is much darker and have a white border. The patch below the eye is also much larger giving it a totally different appearance.

Porcupinefishes are just like pufferfish very intelligent fish and will quickly learn to recognize you and your behaviour. Their intelligence and behaviour make you soon treat these animals more like a dog than a fish. Combined with the unusual shape, they make up a showpiece in every tank!

When young they can sometimes be found in small groups, but once matured they live alone and for a home aquarium we recommend to only keep one per tank.

Remember they aren’t reef safe though! They feed on almost anything they can catch, like crab, molluscs, worms, echinoderms, sponges, tunicates, all kinds of algae from coralline to fleshy and corals (mostly at night, but in an aquarium they soon learn to eat during the day). It can be aggressive towards other fish, so make sure you pick the other fishes with care! Because their teeth will grow their entire life, they need to eat hard/shelled food constantly to keep them from growing too large. Be sure to offer foods like crab, whole shrimp and snails on a regular basis.