---
title: Whitespotted Puffer (Arothron hispidus)
scientific_name: Arothron hispidus
common_name: Whitespotted Puffer
taxon: Puffers
conservation_status: LC - Least Concern
published: 2023-12-26T17:03:43.942Z
updated: 2026-08-30T23:12:39.690Z
tags: Whitespotted Puffer, Arothron hispidus, Puffers, Red Sea, Marine Life, Diving
url: https://redseacreatures.com/taxon/fishes/bony-fishes/puffers/whitespotted-puffer
---

# Whitespotted Puffer (*Arothron hispidus*)

## Quick facts

- **Group:** Puffers (*Tetraodontidae*)
- **Size:** up to 50 cm
- **Weight:** up to 2 kg
- **Depth:** 1-50 m
- **Diet:** Omnivore
- **Activity:** Diurnal
- **Rarity:** Common
- **Habitat:** Sheltered reef flats, lagoons and seagrass, often in turbid water
- **Reproduction:** Broadcast spawner, Gonochoric
- **Hazard:** Poisonous
- **Conservation status:** LC - Least Concern

## How to recognise it

- greenish-brown, thickly speckled with white spots over back, sides and tail
- belly barred in white, which is where the name stars and stripes comes from
- dark blotch ringed by yellow concentric curves at the base of the pectoral fin
- leaves visible scrape marks where it has been working a reef flat
- up to 50 cm

This fish lives in the Red Sea and it also lives in Panama. Its range runs from here and East Africa east to Japan, Hawaii and Rapa, and then picks up again on the far side of the Pacific, from Baja California and the Gulf of California down to Panama. In between lies thousands of kilometers of open ocean with no reef to stop at, the barrier that ends the range of almost every reef fish on earth, and this puffer is one of the few animals on both sides of it.

What you meet here is a baggy brown fish spotted white all over, up to 50 cm and 2 kg, with a dark blotch ringed by yellow concentric curves at the base of the pectoral fin and a belly barred in white. The old name stars and stripes puffer is those two patterns. It hovers over sheltered sand and seagrass, unhurried and unbothered.

The skin has no scales, which is what allows the inflation: threatened, the fish pumps water into a stretchy stomach chamber until it is a rigid ball, and the loose spotted hide expands smoothly with it. Doing this in air, as when someone lifts one out of the water for a photograph, can leave the fish unable to expel the gas.

The flesh, skin, liver and gonads carry tetrodotoxin, and this species has caused fatal poisonings where people ate it. The toxin is not made by the fish: it comes from bacteria acquired through the diet, which is why farmed puffers raised on clean feed end up non-toxic.

The four fused teeth form a beak that grows continuously and is used on hard food - coral, molluscs, urchins, sponge - so a puffer working a reef flat leaves visible scrape marks behind it.

## Also known as

- **English:** bristly puffer, stripebelly puffer, white-spotted puffer
- **Arabic:** Hadroom
- **Hebrew:** נפוחית הטבעות, נפוחית לבנת-כתמים
- **French:** Poisson ballon à épaule noire, Ballon à épaule noire, Compère à Taches Blanches
- **Italian:** pesce palla a punti bianchi
- **German:** Weißflecken-Kugelfisch
- **Spanish:** botete panza rayada, Tamboril Verde De Puntos Blancos, Botete Pintado
- **Portuguese:** Baiacu-de-pintas-brancas
- **Dutch:** Witgevlekte Kogelvis
- **Polish:** arotron szorstki
- **Czech:** čtverzubec běloskvrnný
- **Japanese:** サザナミフグ, Sazanamifugu
- **Chinese:** 烏規, 白點河魨, 紋腹叉鼻魨
- **Ukrainian:** Аротрон колючий
- **Russian:** Колючий аротрон
- **AF:** Witspikkel-blaasop
- **BIS:** Nilfis
- **CA:** Peix bola de taques blanques
- **DA:** Hvidplettet kuglefisk
- **DIV:** ލައްޖެހި ކޮލި
- **FI:** Harmaapallokala
- **FIJ:** kalavo ni vutia
- **KO:** 흰점꺼끌복
- **TAH:** huehue
- **TGL:** Butete
- **TH:** ปลาปักเป้าจุดขาว, ปลาปักเป้ายักษ์แต้มขาว
- **VI:** Cá nóc chuột vân bụng

## Scientific synonyms

- *Arothon hispidus* (Linnaeus, 1758)
- *Arothron hispidus perspicillaris* (Rüppell, 1829)
- *Crayracion hispidus* (Linnaeus, 1758)
- *Dilobomycter hispidus* (Linnaeus, 1758)
- *Dilobomycterus hispidus* (Linnaeus, 1758)
- *Takifugu hispidus* (Linnaeus, 1758)
- *Tetraodon hispidus* Linnaeus, 1758
- *Tetraodon perspicillaris* Rüppell, 1829
- *Tetraodon sazanami* Tanaka, 1916
- *Tetraodon semistriatus* Rüppell, 1837
- *Tetrodon hispidus* Linnaeus, 1758
- *Tetrodon laterna* Richardson, 1845
- *Tetrodon pusillus* Klunzinger, 1871

## Range

Indian Ocean, Kenya, Madagascar, Mozambique, Red Sea, Republic of Mauritius, Seychelles, South Africa

---

*Source: [Red Sea Creatures](https://redseacreatures.com/taxon/fishes/bony-fishes/puffers/whitespotted-puffer)*
*Updated: August 30, 2026*