Every pufferfish is a stack of tissues that must agree under season, prey and human pressure.
Meters below repeat the six atlas scores as gauges; they are relative marks, not laboratory certificates.
Systems
Support and integument
A rigid boxy body, four fused tooth plates and a stomach diverticulum for inflation. Skin may carry spines; liver and gonad may carry TTX.
Feeding apparatus
Crushing molluscs, crustaceans and reef invertebrates. Inflation is a rare expensive defence, not a commute gait. The feeding kit sets the ecological-role score relative to the other 23 types.
Respiration and circulation
Gas exchange and blood flow are tuned to the pufferfish energy budget -- dive, hover, sprint or bulk browse -- not to a generic vertebrate template.
Senses and neural control
Good close vision for a beak strike. Toxin is not a sense -- it is a stored consequence of diet and microbes.
Reproduction and ontogeny
Replacement rate is the hidden resilience number. A licence and a sodium channel. Over-harvest of Takifugu and reef heat are quieter than the poison story.
Thermoregulation and salt/water
Climate and osmoregulation bound where a pufferfish can close its daily budget. Field sites in the English-speaking world still measure that envelope first.
Relative meters
Hotspots
Primary weapon or tool
The bill, teeth, trunk, pouch or talon that field guides name first -- and that trade or conflict usually targets.
Energy store
Fat, cache, crop or bamboo hours that decide whether a season closes.
Natal or breeding site
A redd, eyrie, den, anemone or ice lair -- often a single-point risk (Izumi, Natron, Gir).
Sensory organ
Good close vision for a beak strike. Toxin is not a sense -- it is a stored consequence of diet and microbes.
Human interface
Hunt, tourism, film or quota -- the surface where pufferfish biology meets English-language law.
Tissues & materials
Keratin and integument
Feathers, fur, baleen or skin plates -- tissues, not metals. Moult and wear are the maintenance cycle.
Bone and cartilage
Load paths for stoop, lunge, knuckle-walk or hover. Marrow and pneumatic bone differ by family.
Muscle and tendon
The expensive tissue that speed and intelligence scores only hint at.
Fat, oil and glycogen
Stores that migration, fast and lactation spend. A market for those stores (oil, ivory, fin) is a historical threat.
Keep exploring
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