“Eat Me if You Dare!”

Even if a predator dared, it wouldn’t be easy. When irritated, pufferfish blow up their bodies into a round ball. It doesn’t make swallowing them easy. Moreover, when they inflate themselves, thousands of sharp hollow spines pop up out of the pores of their skin. To swallow such a pincushion makes a very scratchy throat.

If all of this is not enough to deter the predator and it succeeds in swallowing the puffer, its troubles really begin. Pufferfish are full of tetrodotoxin. Tetrodotoxin is one of the best-known marine poisons.

Notwithstanding this, its flesh is highly prized by Oriental gourmets. Called fugu by the Japanese, it is even eaten raw as sashimi. It kills many people each year. The book Undersea Life states:

“Despite the danger, fugu fanatics still relish the mild euphoria, hot and cold flushes, and tingling sensations afforded by ‘controlled’ doses of the poison, as well as the unusual taste of the meat. As even sublethal symptoms of severe tetrodotoxin poisoning include sweating, headache, nausea, respiratory paralysis, skin rashes, hemorrhaging, deep apparent coma without loss of consciousness, and sometimes total muscular paralysis, it is surprising that sashimi fanciers do not stick to tuna and sea bass.”​—Page 180.