Bandtail Puffer, Sphoeroides spengleri

Bandtail Puffer, Sphoeroides spengleri. Fish caught from coastal waters off Big Pine Key, Florida, February 2017. Length: 11.0 cm (4.3 inches). Catch, photograph and identification courtesy of Eli (obsessiveangling.wordpress.com).

Bandtail Puffer, Sphoeroides spengleri. Fish caught Fish caught off the Channel 5 Bridge (MM 71.4), Florida Keys, Florida, January 2014. Length: 12.2 cm (5.0 inches). Catch, photograph and identification courtesy of Ryan Crutchfield, Tampa, Florida.

Bandtail Puffer, Sphoeroides spengleri. Fish caught from coastal waters off Caye Ambergris, Belize, June 2013. Length: 15 cm (5.9 inches). Catch, photograph and identification courtesy of Eli (obsessiveangling.wordpress.com).

Bandtail Puffer, Sphoeroides spengleri. Fish caught from coastal waters off Big Pine Key, Florida, April 2019. Length: 26 cm (10 inches). Catch, photograph and identification courtesy of Luke Ovgard, Klamath Falls, Oregon.

Bandtail Puffer, Sphoeroides spengleri. Fish caught from coastal waters off Key West, Florida, August 2014, Length: 26 cm (10 inches). Catch, photograph and identification courtesy of Dean Kimberly, Atlanta, Georgia.

Bandtail Puffer, Sphoeroides spengleri.  Fish caught from coastal waters off Key Largo, Florida, March 2017. Length: 26 cm (10 inches). Catch, photograph, and identification courtesy of Josh Leisen (joshadventures.com), Gaylord, Michigan.

Bandtail Puffer, Sphoeroides spengleri. Photograph taken underwater in coastal waters off Cancun, Quintina Roo, December 2020. Photograph and identification courtesy of Bob Hillis, Ivins, Utah.

Bandtail Puffer, Sphoeroides spengleri.

The Bandtail Puffer, Sphoeroides spengleri, and known locally as botete, is a member of the Puffer or Tetraodontidae Family, that is known in Mexico as botete collarete or simply botete. Globally, there are twenty-three species in the genus Sphoeroides, of which eleven are found in Mexican waters, six in the Atlantic and five in the Pacific Ocean.

The Bandtail Puffer has a moderately elongated bodies that has a width that is 29% to 33% of standard length. They have an overall olive-brown coloration with mottling. Their ventral side is flat and uniform white in color. They have a sharply defined row of round black spots that extends along their lower sides from the head to the caudal fin base. They also have a slightly rounded caudal fin, with 2 dark bars, after which they are named. Their head has a long narrow snout and is concave between their large elevated eyes which glow like gold-lined emeralds. They have 4 large teeth which are used to crush their prey. Their anal and dorsal fins are small and similarly shaped, have short bases, and are found well back on their body with the anal fin being slightly behind the dorsal fin which has 9 rays. Their body is covered with small sandpaper-like denticles and is scaleless.

The Bandtail Puffer is a demersal species that reside on the bottom and are abundant in all inshore habitats associated with reefs where adequate cover, such as seagrass beds and reef flats are found, at depths up to 69 m (225 feet). They reach a maximum of 30 cm (12 inches) in length, but are more commonly around 12 cm (4.7 inches). They feed on crustaceans, echinoderms, mollusks, plants and polychaetes. They are exceedingly well camouflaged and have the ability to blow themselves up like balloons, presumably as a defense mechanism to deter predator attacks. The Bandtail Puffer is poorly studied with very limited information available about their lifestyle and behavioral patterns including specific details on age, growth, longevity, movement patterns, diet, habitat use, and reproduction.

The Bandtail Puffer is a resident of all Mexican waters of the Atlantic Ocean including the Gulf of Mexico and the east coast of the Yucatán Peninsula in the Caribbean.

The Bandtail Puffer is an easy fish to identify due to its coloration, however, it is almost identical to the somewhat larger Longnose Puffer, Sphoeroides lobatus, found in the Pacific Ocean.

From a conservation perspective the Bandtail Puffer is currently considered to be of Least Concern with stable, widely distributed populations. They are a frequent by-catch being very very accessible via hook and line and caught off the bottom in shallow waters utilizing small hooks tipped with cut squid. They are a “catch and release” that quickly return to the deep. They are most definitely one of the fish with the greatest personality in the ocean. They are a favorite of divers and also a commonly-traded aquarium fish. Note: Like many Puffers, the Bandtail Puffer is reputed to be highly poisonous, even fatal, if eaten, due to the presence of the potent neurotoxins saxitoxin and/or tetrodotoxin, which is found in their skin, viscera, and gonads and is believed to protect them from predation by larger fish.