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✎ Andrés Rodriguez

✎ Andrés Rodriguez

✎ Diego Aguilera

Amazon Puffer
Colomesus asellusAmazon region

  • Generalities
  • Morpho-functionality
  • Lifecycle
  • Distribution

RECORRIDO VIRTUAL POR LA BIODIVERSIDAD DE COLOMBIA
Museo de Historia Natural
Universidad Nacional de Colombia

Amazon Puffer
Colomesus asellus

Known as Amazonian puffer fish. They have an oval shape and a wide body, and can measure 13 cm in length. Their mouth is flat and they have two teeth plates that help them break the shells of the mollusks on which they feed and grow on submerged vegetation.

Conservation status

Extinct

Extinct in the Wild

Critically Endangered

Endangered

Vulnerable

Near Threatened

Least Concern

Not Evaluated

Data Deficient

Morpho-functionality

Teeth

Its teeth are fused into an upper and a lower plate which helps it cut fruits and insects that fall into the streams of rivers

Body

It fills its body with water to make itself look bigger and bigger and thus avoid being preyed upon by other animals.

Skin

On their skin they have glands that produce mucus that works as a barrier against bacteria and makes them smooth to the touch.

Lifecycle

The reproductive cycle or courtship behavior are not known. There is no sexual dimorphism. Is is assumed that they breed in the late dry season, and the young grow during the rainy season. This is inferred by feeding behaviors on the river bank where it is more frequent to see adults in the dry season and juveniles in the rainy season.

Amazon Puffer

Distribution

It is found distributed in the Amazon basin and the river mouth of the Orinoco. It is common to find it living in temperatures between 22 and 28 ° C, in the floating forage grass of the Amazonian rivers and their lagoon systems where it feeds.

Distribution area