---
title: Starry Puffer (Arothron stellatus)
scientific_name: Arothron stellatus
common_name: Starry Puffer
taxon: Puffers
conservation_status: LC - Least Concern
published: 2023-12-30T18:39:01.289Z
updated: 2026-08-12T09:20:35.827Z
tags: Starry Puffer, Arothron stellatus, Puffers, Red Sea, Marine Life, Diving
url: https://redseacreatures.com/taxon/fishes/bony-fishes/puffers/starry-puffer
---

# Starry Puffer (*Arothron stellatus*)

## Quick facts

- **Group:** Puffers (*Tetraodontidae*)
- **Size:** up to 1.2 m
- **Depth:** 3-60 m
- **Diet:** Carnivore
- **Activity:** Diurnal
- **Rarity:** Uncommon
- **Habitat:** Reef, rubble and sand, cruising slowly in the open
- **Reproduction:** Broadcast spawner, Gonochoric
- **Hazard:** Poisonous
- **Conservation status:** LC - Least Concern

## How to recognise it

- very large puffer, white to gray, covered in small black dots
- juveniles boldly striped and blotched, nothing like the adults
- no pelvic fins; steers with the pectorals and sculls with the tail
- length up to 1.2 m

The largest puffer on the reef, up to 1.2 m (4 ft), white to gray and covered in fine black dots. Juveniles look like a different animal entirely, boldly marked in stripes and blotches, and the change catches out even experienced guides.

Inflation is a hydraulic trick, not air. Threatened, the fish pumps water into a highly elastic stomach diverticulum until it is a rigid sphere several times its normal volume, at which point almost nothing can get its jaws around it. The skin has no scales to get in the way, the ribs are reduced so the body can expand, and the whole operation takes a few seconds. Lifting a puffer out of the water to make it inflate with air is a good way to kill it.

The chemistry is what everyone knows and few explain. Pufferfish tissue carries tetrodotoxin, produced not by the fish but by bacteria it accumulates through its diet, and there is no antidote. It is over a thousand times more toxic than cyanide by weight, which is why fugu preparation is licensed work in Japan and why nothing on the reef bothers an adult puffer.

The four fused teeth form a beak that crushes coral, molluscs and urchins, and grow continuously to keep up with the wear.

## Also known as

- **English:** blackspotted puffer, Stellate Puffer, starry toadfish, Staring Blow Fish
- **French:** Tétrodon étoilé, Ballon Constellé, Ballon étoilé
- **Japanese:** モヨウフグ, Moyofugu
- **Russian:** Звездчатый аротрон
- **TAH:** huehue

## Scientific synonyms

- *Arothron aerostaticus* (Jenyns, 1842)
- *Arothron alboreticulatus* (Tanaka, 1908)
- *Arothron stellatus* (Bloch & Schneider, 1801)
- *Chelonodon stellaris* (Bloch & Schneider, 1801)
- *Diodon asper* Cuvier, 1818
- *Kanduka michiei* Hora, 1925
- *Takifugu stellatus* (Bloch & Schneider, 1801)
- *Tetraodon aerostaticus* Jenyns, 1842
- *Tetraodon aerostatious* Jenyns, 1842
- *Tetraodon alboreticulatus* Tanaka, 1908
- *Tetraodon calamara* Rüppell, 1829
- *Tetraodon lagocephalus var. stellatus* Bloch & Schneider, 1801
- *Tetraodon punctatus* Bloch & Schneider, 1801
- *Tetraodon stellatus* Bloch & Schneider, 1801
- *Tetrodon aerostaticus* Jenyns, 1842
- *Tetrodon lagocephalus stellatus* Bloch & Schneider, 1801
- *Tetrodon lagocephalus var. stellatus* Bloch & Schneider, 1801
- *Tetrodon punctatus* Bloch & Schneider, 1801
- *Tetrodon stellatus* Bloch & Schneider, 1801

## Range

Djibouti, Indian Ocean, Kenya, Mozambique, New Zealand, Red Sea, Seychelles, South Africa

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*Source: [Red Sea Creatures](https://redseacreatures.com/taxon/fishes/bony-fishes/puffers/starry-puffer)*
*Updated: August 12, 2026*