Stripebelly Puffer, Arothron hispidus

Stripebelly Puffer, Arothron hispidus, Juvenile. Fish provided by the commercial fishermen of the greater Los Cabos area, Baja California Sur, September 2012. Length: 11.0 cm (4.3 inches). Identification courtesy of H.J. Walker, Jr., Scripps Institution of Oceanography, La Jolla, California.

Stripebelly Puffer, Arothron hispidus. Fish provided by the commercial fishermen of the greater Los Cabos area, Baja California Sur, September 2012. Length: 40 cm (16 inches). Identification courtesy of H.J. Walker, Jr., Scripps Institution of Oceanography, La Jolla, California.

Stripebelly Puffer, Arothron hispidus. Underwater photograph taken in coastal waters off Kailua-Kona, Hawaii, July 2014. Photograph courtesy of Bob Hillis, Ivins, Utah.

The Stripebelly Puffer, Arothron hispidus, is a member of the Puffer or Tetradontidae Family, that is also known as the White Spotted Puffer and in Mexican as botete panza rayada or simply botete. Globally, there are thirteen species in the genus Arothron, of which two are found in Mexican waters, both in the Pacific Ocean.

The Stripebelly Puffers has a very heavy rounded body. They have a gray-brown coloration with small white spots on their back shading to white below with dark curved stripes along their belly. Their pectoral fin base and gill openings are circled by alternating narrow white and black bands. They have large heads with blunt short snouts and heavily beaked jaws. Their anal and dorsal fins are small and similarly shaped with 10 or 11 rays, short bases, and are found well back on their body; their caudal base is as long as it is deep and their caudal fin is rounded; their pectoral fins have 17 to 19 rays; and, they do not have pelvic fins. They are scaleless.

The Stripebelly Puffer is found in and around rocky coral reefs adjacent to sandy bottoms at depths up to 122 m (400 feet). They reach a maximum of 52 cm (20 inches) in length. As of January 1, 2023, the International Game Fish Association world record stood at 2.01 kg (4 lbs 7 oz) with the fish caught in coastal waters off Hawaii in October 1992. They have the ability to blow themselves up like balloons, presumably as a defense mechanism to deter predator attacks. The Stripebelly 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 Stripebelly Puffer is widely distributed and are found both in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. In Mexican waters they are a resident of all waters of the Pacific Ocean with the exception that they are absent from the northern portions of the Sea of Cortez.

The Stripebelly Puffer is a straight forward identification and they cannot be easily confused with other species due to its coloration.

From a conservation perspective the Stripebelly Puffer is currently considered to be of Least Concern with stable, widely distributed populations. They are utilized by the aquarium trade being sold commercially and as a cleaning fish for marine cages and culture tanks.  The Stripebelly Puffers are very rare and normally not accessible via hook and line and are taken primarily as a by-catch by deepwater shrimp trawlers. Note: Like many Puffers, the Stripebelly Puffer is reputed to be highly poisonous, even fatal, if eaten, due to the presence of the potential 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.