The spikefishes (family Triacanthodidae) are ray-finned fishes related to the

pufferfish Tetraodontidae is a family of primarily marine and estuarine fish of the order Tetraodontiformes. The family includes many familiar species variously called pufferfish, puffers, balloonfish, blowfish, blowies, bubblefish, globefish, swellfis ...

es and triggerfishes. They live in deep waters; more than , but above the

continental shelves A continental shelf is a portion of a continent that is submerged under an area of relatively shallow water, known as a shelf sea. Much of these shelves were exposed by drops in sea level during glacial periods. The shelf surrounding an isl ...

. They are found in the Atlantic,

Indian Ocean The Indian Ocean is the third-largest of the world's five oceanic divisions, covering or ~19.8% of the water on Earth's surface. It is bounded by Asia to the north, Africa to the west and Australia to the east. To the south it is bounded by ...

, and the west-central Pacific. The spikefishes are quite variable in form, with some species having tubular snouts (greatly elongated in ''Halimochirurgus'' and ''Macrorhamphosodes''), and others have spoon-like teeth for scraping the scales off other fishes. Depending on the exact species involved, they reach a maximum length of about . While spikefish are shaped in a wide variety of different colors, sizes, and shapes, they can characterized by their similarities of having a dense body with relatively thick skin, a large amount of tiny yet spiky scales, two dorsal fins of which the first contains six spines and twelve to eighteen soft spines along the second, a rounded caudal fin, small and terminal mouth with at least 10 average sized conical teeth.

References

Tetraodontiformes Taxa named by Theodore Gill {{Tetraodontiformes-stub