- Although I love your photos and especially this puffer fish, I may be upping your stats a bit as I have it as my 'home page" for Stumble and so I get to look at it each time I log on...which is very often. Not sure if it makes too much difference though as 71.000 is a lot of hits indeed. - Gingermegs2009
- its so little im adding it to my faves - leileigurl10
- Perfect! - rahkat
- He's smiling!!!! AWWW! - starbooze
pufferfish
found in my casting net along the beach
Since this picture gets so much traffic, I should add a little
background. Once a storm passes us here in the Tampa Bay area, it
usually rips up the sea grasses in the bay, intercoastal, and
estuaries. So if you look closely enough at the stuff that is riding
along with the sea grass at the beach you'll see lots of critters.
This guy was tiny, and probably didn't survive too much longer being
washed back and forth on the beach.
So it's very important to remember that the sea grass areas can be
just as rich and bountiful as reefs. (A lot of the seagrass areas are
destroyed by fertilizer runoff that choke those areas with thick matts
of algae.)
Also rolling in the beach break, I've found tiny octopi (just slightly
bigger than this guy), and a kind of butterfly fish that camoflage
themselves by looking like nothing more than leafs. The butterfly fish
make the dead seagrass and beachbreak their homes. They usually swim
on their sides, and really the only way to find them is to watch the
seagrass closely. If you have seagrass wash by your ankle, it will go
one way, but the butterfly fish will right themselves and swim
another. The largest I've seen one of these butterfly fish was about
the size of a quarter.
Click here to see where this photo was taken.
Comments and faves
blu_pineappl3, leileigurl10, atotheyano, Midnight Brunette, and 35 other people added this photo to their favorites.
rgls_pics [deleted] (82 months ago | reply)
Wow, it's really cute!
estacey (76 months ago | reply)
did you put it back?
porkfork6 (76 months ago | reply)
yup!
divaofdiesel (63 months ago | reply)
I am so pleased that you put it back! What a wonderful photo op.
estacey (63 months ago | reply)
oh yes, too cute
scrnnmna (63 months ago | reply)
He's no bigger than your finger tips, but it's still in its defense mode, all puffed up. Awwwww, cutest little fella. :)
kirsty 1994 (63 months ago | reply)
hes really cute
Just Goofin' [deleted] (58 months ago | reply)
This is really awesome! Beautiful picture. :)
Kade © (56 months ago | reply)
so little, angry and cute! :)
Ωméga * (51 months ago | reply)
Quelle incroyable poisson et très belle photo
A v i n a (49 months ago | reply)
I thought puffer fish were poisonous when you touch them? Don't they have barbs? Or is that only in particular species?
Either way, it's so cuuute!! ♥♥
porkfork6 (49 months ago | reply)
No barbs on this guy, he might not be all that delicious though.
But yes, he makes his living by being cute!
chocolate.specialk (49 months ago | reply)
awwwwwwwwwww........
porkfork6 (49 months ago | reply)
Here's something else I caught on the beach:
The InnKeeper ♥ [deleted] (49 months ago | reply)
ee! he's so cute! ♥
Chrischang (49 months ago | reply)
how cute!
safchine (49 months ago | reply)
Is it a pokemon ?
dbqueen (49 months ago | reply)
cute! *kisses*
CraftyHope (49 months ago | reply)
Oh I how I LOVE puffers. I've never seen one so small. Love it!!!
Rafael Montilla SEO Latino (49 months ago | reply)
Did you put it back in the water? I hope so!
fabian17 (49 months ago | reply)
just stop taking pics and send him back to the sea!
João F Guerra (49 months ago | reply)
Fabulous!!!
murtaza.soni (49 months ago | reply)
Amazing how different life forms exist on earth!
syntheticintel (49 months ago | reply)
That is really cool. I love the colors on the fish.
Nature is truly wonderful.
bridgewires (49 months ago | reply)
awesome
tranquilbriez (49 months ago | reply)
great photograph!
jlgecko2 (49 months ago | reply)
Thats awesome, I'm moving to Palm Bay in the next couple months and pics like this make it so I can't wait!
earthexpressions (49 months ago | reply)
beautiful!
alexandercrockett (49 months ago | reply)
I now have your fingerprints. But what a great photo.
catt231 (49 months ago | reply)
I want a tank full o tiny puffas!
--
Seen on your photo stream. (?)
fallowing (49 months ago | reply)
he already told you it was dead when he found it.
rmcgervey (49 months ago | reply)
In case you didn't know, StumbleUpon has found and posted a link to this photo which is likely why you're getting alot of traffic...
I spent some time on a research sailboat in the North Atlantic (SS/RV Westward, SEA out of Woods Hole), and we would scoop sargassum in a net to sample the marine flora and fauna, and often find these little cuties in the sargassum. They live in the sargassum too. Which makes sense, since sargassum are just floating sea grass essentially.
We would put them in our onboard fish tank for a brief stay and observation every now and then.
Nice photo!
rmcgervey (49 months ago | reply)
Oh, and their skin is poisonous and it's generally not recommended to handle them. Some species may be more poisonous than others. But their meat is a delicacy in some countries, though I imagine they use bigger specimens. (Sorry, was reading through your other comments.)
rabcac (49 months ago | reply)
OK. The sea holds sooooooo many fascinating creatures. The nation govts really should soend more time exploring these waters. Nice photo share!
paperxcrip (49 months ago | reply)
Thank you.
cutglassdecanter (49 months ago | reply)
Oh, so sad. he's so small and scared. Now he is probably not alive.
jyfulness (49 months ago | reply)
I love him
lkatz (49 months ago | reply)
awwwwwww
porkfork6 (49 months ago | reply)
I'd like to thank you stumbler folks for checking out my pics, I've been outta town the last few days, only to come back to see this picture has had over 71,000 views (that's a crazy amount of views for one of my pictures).
For those that didn't read from the beginning. This little guy was caught in my casting net. He was alive when I caught him, he was handled with much love and care, and was put back into the water soon after the picture.
I do stand by my statement that he probably didn't survive much longer. These guys are no match for the wave action on the beach. (I had a puffer in my saltwater fishtank for only an hour, and had to take him back to the pet store because he kept getting stuck against the spillover filter that I had at the time (it's gentle in comparison to power filters).
For other folks looking for the larger size, this was taken with my first digital camera, and the original file is lost. Sorry.
Peace to you all
cucsa (49 months ago | reply)
oh shit, this fish is poisonous
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetrodotoxin
rory_mcknight (49 months ago | reply)
Way to go!!! Great pick ups!!! Look like you might have found the dork fish!!!
bohemiaxx (49 months ago | reply)
this is the cutest ugly thing i've ever seen.
redshoespr (49 months ago | reply)
I love this photo!
bbsporty (49 months ago | reply)
How cool!
LoveLikeGravity (49 months ago | reply)
That is the cutest ugly little seathing I've ever seen.
manfredman72 (49 months ago | reply)
cute fishy
M4j4 (49 months ago | reply)
cute:)
Gale's Photographs (49 months ago | reply)
Amazing fish......
DREAMY PICS (49 months ago | reply)
It reminds me of a beautiful tiny tropical fish that I placed in a glass for 2 days, but I put it back in the sea !
designforlife (49 months ago | reply)
This is an awesome pic!! I found it through stumbleupon and dont really have much experience of flikr so thanks for opening my eyes to some really cool and beautiful stuff!! :)