A small pointed puffer with blue lines around the eye and a yellow-edged tail, hovering just above the bottom.
To about 12 cm, tan above and white below with bright blue lines radiating from the eye and a yellow-edged tail. It hovers just off the bottom, moving with the pectoral fins, and it is one of the commonest small fish on a Caribbean reef.
Like every puffer it carries tetrodotoxin, which is produced by bacteria the fish accumulates rather than by the fish itself, and for which there is no antidote. It is a hazard to something that eats one and to nothing else: the fish injects nothing, has no spines, and is safe to be close to. It is territorial with its own kind and will chase another sharpnose puffer off a patch of reef, which is most of what it does all day.
Ratings are per location: 1 means found on most dives that look for it, 5 means a handful of records. Where enough dives have been logged the figure is calculated from them; otherwise it is an editorial estimate, and says so. We publish habitat and destination, not the dive site.